FUNERAL HOME LETS GIRL’S BODY ROT AFTER SHE WAS BEATEN TO DEATH

A mother whose two-year-old daughter was allegedly killed by her ex-boyfriend has been left with yet more anguish – after she learned the child’s body had been left rotting in a funeral home basement.

The body of Ranasia Knight was just one of four found badly decomposed at the Gundel Funeral Home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania after the funeral director had promised to cremate their bodies. The young girl died in an emergency room on January 12 and at first her heart-broken mother, Jessica Bachman, thought the girl had fallen down some stairs.

But two days later, Bachman’s former boyfriend, Lester Johnson, seen below, admitted to punching and kicking the young girl, leaving her blind in one eye and fatally injured. He was arrested. Police knocked on her door on February 1 to tell her that her daughter’s badly decomposed body had been found on a table in the basement of a nearby funeral home.

A friend had paid the funeral director, Benjamin M. Siar Jr., (seen below) $400 for Ranasia’s final arrangements and he promised to have her cremated and the ashes delivered to Bachman, she said. But he refused to pick up her calls and made excuses for delays, she said. ‘This man knew all the stuff I’m going through,’ she told Lancaster Online. ‘It’s bad enough that I had to lose my daughter to a murder. This man came to my house. This man told me my daughter was in good hands.’

The tiny body was just one of four found at Siar’s business, the Gundel Funeral Home. Authorities also found the decomposing bodies of Rosa Kleinhaus, 76, who had died on December 20, M. Elizabeth Zug, 97, who died December 26 and Sandra J. Hotchkiss, 71, who died January 21.

Siar, 41, is now in Lancaster County Prison and faces numerous charges, including abuse of a corpse and theft by deception. The Pennsylvania Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs also filed a 24-count complaint against Siar which could cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, as well as his license.

Authorities found the bodies during a raid of Siar’s funeral home after they heard claims from other people that Siar had taken their money but had not followed through with cremations. Ron Ruman, press secretary for the PA Department of State said: ‘Among other things, they have alleged this individual has violated the act through a gross incompetence, misconduct and negligence and carrying on the duties of being in a funeral director, in addition to some other charges.’

He said the board will now decide how to deal with the charges: ‘Their number one job is to protect the public health and safety, so they’ll look into these allegations.’ Siar, who turned himself in to county detectives after the bodies were found, acknowledged a backlog’ of bodies to be cremated.

But he blamed the delays on Lancaster County Coroner’s Office for the delays, which county coroner Dr. Stephen Diamantoni has since denied. ‘I will fully take responsibility for anything I’ve done wrong,’ Siar said, but ‘this is just getting absurd’.

SOURCE: DM