NJ funeral home casket with baby’s remains ends up on Philly street

PHILADELPHIA — The embalmed remains of an infant found inside a casket on the street came from a New Jersey funeral home.

Police told The Associated Press that a funeral home worker dumped the casket there unaware that it still contained some of the remains of a dead 4-month-old child whose body had been transferred into a another casket.

A  small white casket was found just after 9 p.m. on Monday with embalmed internal organs inside on a sidewalk on West Clearfield Street across from Mount Vernon Cemetery in the city's Strawberry Mansion section, according to Philadelphia Police.

A New Jersey funeral home contacted police on Tuesday claiming the casket belonged to them, 6 ABC Action News reported. Capt. Malachi Jones told the station that the casket had a broken latch and the body of the infant had been taken out and placed in another casket.

Jones would not disclose the name of the funeral home and suggested that the organs had been separated from the body during an autopsy.

Police have been in touch with the child's family, and they hope to reunite the organs with the baby's body. However, because the child has already been buried, the remains would have to be exhumed in order to do so, Jones said.

"The family is quite upset," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Contact reporter Dan Alexander at Dan.Alexander@townsquaremedia.com.

More from New Jersey 101.5: