‘That wasn’t even my wife:’ Funeral director accused of mishandling bodies

JACKSONVILLE, Fla — A local funeral director accused of mishandling funds and bodies at Marion Graham Mortuaries is now in jail in Jacksonville. Action news Jax told you when Elliot Maurice Graham was arrested last week in Orange County.

Action News Jax Annette Gutierrez spoke with families who say they fell victim to Graham’s alleged funeral fraud scheme. They said they are still mourning the loss of their loved one, and now they are coping with the horrifying details in the arrest warrant.

The report says investigators went to the mortuary, and they smelled the “the odor of decomposed human remains” and there was “no electricity service having been provided since October 2023.”

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“Four months without no electricity?,” widower Johnnie Jackson said while holding back tears. “She’d been in there all that time. I mean it just sad.”

Jackson lost his wife Ola Mae Edmond Brown Jackson last year in September. He and his family chose Marion Graham Mortuary to hold the funeral and have her body cremated.

The arrest warrant identified one of the deceased as “O.E.B” with services totaling to $3,775.00.

When Action News Jax asked them to confirm if this is how much the family paid, Jackson said yes.

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This family never received their services. Instead, they tell Action News Jax, they received the remains of someone else. The family says Ola Mae was one of the bodies investigators found inside the abandoned funeral home.

“It’s sad,” Jackson said. “He gave me something that wasn’t even my wife.”

On January 30th, state investigators served a warrant to perform a compliance check after Graham had “multiple refusals of inspections.”

The report says Graham said he was going through “personal matters and was “unavailable” for an inspection.

While the funeral home looks normal on the outside, it’s far from it on the inside. The arrest warrant says three bodies were found inside body bags, and “infested with flying insects” from being stored in a non-refrigerated and non-air conditioned facility.

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“It makes you feel horrible,” Johnnie Jackson’s sister Sandra James said. “It makes you wonder how a person could be so inhumane. This is another step back for the family though, because now it opens up more wounds – that salt is just deeper and deeper.”

The reports also say rooms in the mortuary were described as in ‘disarray’ with signs of a ‘private living space.’

We also learned Graham’s funeral director license had been ‘administratively invalid’ since September.

Graham has since been arrested and is facing charges of grand theft and improper preservation of a human body.

“I’m happy to know that he has been caught and at least for the family, it gives us some relief knowing that he is now where he needs to be,” James said.

Action News Jax is waiting to learn when his next court date will be.

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