‘He’s playing with death’: Woman chronicles experience with troubled funeral home
Krystle Johnson said her family planned to hold an open-casket funeral after her mother-in-law died July 31 at a hospice facility.
But after making arrangements with McDermott’s Funeral Home and Cremation Service, whose license was revoked this month, they learned that the body’s condition would make that impossible.
“It’s just been a horrible experience,” Johnson said in a recent phone interview. “We’re trying to have this funeral. My husband wanted to have an open-casket funeral for, you know, our loved ones to say their last goodbyes, and now we can’t do that.”
During its quarterly meeting this month, the Nevada State Board of Funeral &Cemetery Services revoked the license of the business’s owner and funeral director, Chris Grant. The board took the action after hearing two complaints: one that alleged the funeral home had failed to dispose of eight bodies in a timely manner, and the other that alleged it had improperly stored bodies.
“He’s playing with death,” Johnson said.
Attempts to reach Grant for comment since a Monday interview have been unsuccessful.
“Human nature is: ‘Funeral Home got closed. I bet they were doing some scummy stuff,’” he said at the time. “Nobody thinks that me and my staff lost everything. I just lost a 25-year career. I just lost a business that I’ve been building for 8½ years. I just lost the ability to even provide for my family.”
All bodies previously being stored at McDermott’s, including the body of Johnson’s mother-in-law, are now being held at Davis Funeral Home &Memorial Park.
Johnson had used McDermott’s services once before, when her husband’s stepfather died in 2020. The cremation took around a month, she said, but she assumed the time frame was because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
When her mother-in-law, Fischele Mixon, died at age 60 last month, Johnson had four hours to retrieve her body from the hospice facility.
“I just went with the first funeral home that I knew,” she said.
Her first meeting with McDermott’s was on Aug. 4 at the 2121 Western Ave. location, which she noted was across the street from a strip club. When she arrived, she said, Grant told her she was at the wrong location and directed her to a location on Decatur Boulevard.
Once at the Decatur location, Johnson said, she made arrangements for Mixon’s funeral with Meghan Williams, office manager at McDermott’s.
Williams did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Johnson said she scheduled an open-casket funeral for the afternoon of Aug. 23 and made a $1,000 deposit. In total, she agreed to pay $3,450 for the service and a $500 cleaning fee.
But, according to Johnson, Williams later contacted her and asked if she would be willing to move the funeral up to Aug. 16.
“The mortician told her that the body wasn’t going to be in great shape and wouldn’t be able to be viewed, and they would do the best that they could,” Johnson said. “I’ve had family who passed away, who you’ve been able to keep the body at least up to, like, a month, as long as you’re in proper temperatures and things like that.”
At 8 p.m. last Sunday, she received a call from the coroner’s office notifying her that McDermott’s had closed and that her mother-in-law’s body had been moved to Davis Funeral Home.
When she called Davis the next day, she learned that an open casket would not be possible. The body’s poor condition meant it would have to be kept in a body bag while inside the casket, Johnson said she was told.
Contact Emerson Drewes at edrewes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @EmersonDrewes on X.