Closed Las Vegas funeral home had history of disciplinary actions

A Las Vegas funeral home whose license was revoked after years of disciplinary actions was improperly storing bodies that were “leaking blood and bodily fluid,” records show.

McDermott’s Funeral Home and Cremation Service has faced complaints dating back to 2021, according to records from the Nevada State Board of Funeral &Cemetery Services. This month, the board revoked the licenses for the funeral home and funeral director Chris Grant.

Records show that four separate complaints, all initiated last year, were on the agenda for the board to consider. Grant told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Monday that a complaint over the storage of eight bodies led to the revocation.

Stephanie McGee, the executive director of the funeral board, said in an emailed statement Wednesday that the board conducted a two-day hearing for two of the complaints — one that alleged the funeral home failed to dispose of eight bodies in a timely manner, and the other that alleged improper storage of bodies.

“At the conclusion of the hearing, the Board determined that the alleged facts and violations were proven,” McGee said in the statement.

She said a written order on the board’s decision was being drafted, but neither the order nor minutes from the hearing had been made public as of Friday.

The funeral home and Grant have previously faced disciplinary actions that included public reprimands and thousands of dollars in fees. Prior complaints included allegations that the funeral home failed to pay regulatory fees and failed to allow family members to either view a body or view a cremation, records show.

In a phone interview Monday, Grant told the Review-Journal that he has owned McDermott’s since 2017.

He explained that delays in the cremation process occurred while he waited on approvals from Clark County Social Service. The agency pays funeral homes for cremation services when family members cannot afford services or cannot be contacted, or when a body is abandoned.

Attempts to reach Grant for comment since Monday have been unsuccessful.

The Review-Journal has reviewed hundreds of pages of supporting material posted online with the funeral board’s meeting agenda. The records reflect ongoing tension between Grant and the funeral board, which has investigated the funeral home multiple times in recent years.

Other complaints referenced in the agenda centered on allegations that the funeral home was operating at a second location without the proper permits, and that the business failed to cremate a woman’s body in a timely manner after failing to seek death records from a hospital.

Bodies in soiled sheets

The first of the four most recent formal complaints, regarding the eight bodies not disposed of in a timely manner, was brought in April and stemmed from an informal administrative complaint by McGee over a year earlier, records show. Grant was scheduled to appear in front of the board in May but requested a later hearing that was then rescheduled to early August.

Meanwhile, the board brought three other formal complaints against Grant and the funeral home in June and July, records show.

A June 5 complaint alleged that Grant engaged in “unethical practices,” failed to treat bodies with dignity and respect, and failed to maintain the funeral home in a “sanitary and professional manner.”

During inspections on July 10, 2024, and Aug. 19, 2024, multiple bodies, including one of a baby, were found wrapped in soiled sheets, leaking bodily fluids onto the floor and surrounding areas, according to the complaint. One body was lying in an open box.

Dr. Wayne Fazzino, the board’s investigator, found 12 bodies in soiled sheets during the first inspection.

“Three coolers contained numerous bodies that were leaking blood and bodily fluids,” the complaint stated.

A quarter inch of fluid sat at the bottom of one of the shelves that contained a body. The inspector was unable to identify three of the bodies because they lacked a visible label, according to the complaint.

Some of the decedents had died anywhere from 14 to 252 days prior to the inspection.

At the second inspection, Fazzino noted nine bodies that were wrapped in soiled sheets. Four, including the baby, had remained in the funeral home from the prior inspection and had not had their sheets changed.

Grant told the inspector that he did not have a funeral arranger and there was only one person working at the crematorium.

In June, Grant sent a letter to the funeral board disputing that the bodies were kept in “indecent, unsanitary conditions.”

Grant said the sheets and fluids were immediately cleaned up and changed after the inspector pointed them out. He said “disaster pouches,” a type of body bag, were used to wrap all the bodies, not just sheets. And he said the body found in an “open box” had been embalmed and placed in a rental casket.

According to Grant, many of the decedents were Clark County Social Service cases, which he said in “extreme cases” can lead to delays of up to a year before cremation.

“Again, all the bodies in question were dealt with immediately and I have informed my Removal Staff and my Crematory Staff that all bodies are to be re-wrapped IMMEDIATELY when any stains are noticed,” Grant said in the June letter. “All were done before Dr. Fazzino left the property.”

Other complaints

The other two formal complaints against Grant were submitted in July but stemmed from informal complaints initiated in early 2024.

Claudia Kelly, a customer of the funeral home, filed an informal complaint with the board in March 2024, stating that her mother’s body was not cremated until 51 days after her death.

According to the complaint, Kelly was told that the funeral home was “running behind” with cremations and that a missing physician signature on a death record caused the delay. The complaint alleged that Kelly visited the hospital herself seeking a signature on the death record and was told the funeral home had not contacted the hospital about the missing signature. Kelly then visited the funeral home in person to ensure an employee called the hospital, the complaint said.

The death certificate was signed on Jan. 30, 2024, and the body was cremated the next day, according to the complaint.

Grant said in an April 2024 letter to the funeral board that cremations typically took seven to 21 days after the funeral home received all signed documents, but that the time frame is not guaranteed. He also blamed the situation on delays from the hospital.

“We are not in the ‘Storing Bodies’ business,” Grant wrote in the letter. “It does us no good to hold these cases and not get them done.”

Another complaint alleged that Grant had been operating his business out of another location without proper permitting.

Grant put in a request to the board in February 2024 to move his business services to a location off of Decatur Boulevard, while keeping his crematory and storage facility on Western Avenue.

According to the complaint, McGee was told that Grant had changed his address on Yelp and that his business’s website listed the Decatur address before his request was approved by the board.

On Feb. 21, 2024, Fazzino staked out the Decatur location and saw a woman enter and exit the facility with cremated remains, according to the complaint.

The board listed violations involving unprofessional conduct and false or misleading advertising.

Prior complaints against the funeral home and Grant ended in him signing consent decrees in which he did not contest allegations, records show.

Grant and the funeral home were ordered in March to pay $2,000 each in fines, plus more than $3,000 in attorney fees, for failures to pay regulatory costs for three months in 2023.

Records show that the board collects fees that include $10 per funeral service.

‘Never been so stressed, depressed’

Grant and the funeral home also faced a public reprimand in July 2024 for failing to allow a man to view his wife’s body before it was cremated. They were each required to pay $2,000 fines, along with more than $2,000 in attorney fees.

According to the complaint, the customer was told he could see the body after his wife had died, but he was later told via text message that the body had been cremated before he could schedule a visitation.

Grant previously had faced two other public reprimands in August 2021 for failing to transport a body to the facility in a timely manner and for cremating a body before the family could pray over it, records show.

In the June letter to the funeral board, Grant said he has had up to 100 bodies at his business. Grant told the Review-Journal that all of the bodies are now being held at Davis Funeral Home.

In an email sent to Fazzino, the board’s investigator, in May 2024, Grant said that while several of the recent complaints were being lodged against him, he was in the midst of a construction project at one of his locations and was relying on his staff “to do their jobs.”

“You, Stephanie, and the Board are, probably, going to put me out of business permanently, I have never been so stressed, depressed, and just numb in my life,” Grant said in the email.

Contact Emerson Drewes at edrewes@reviewjournal.com. Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240.