Parents say Pompano Beach funeral home mishandled, neglected stillborn son’s body

A Broward County couple is speaking out nearly a year after they say a funeral home let their unborn child’s body deteriorate while in their care.

Last April, Alicia Richard and Namarcus Crane were looking forward to welcoming their fourth child, Na’Mir. However, Na’Mir died before Richard could give birth to him.

“To not hear a heartbeat felt like I didn’t have a heartbeat,” Richard said.

What happened next is what hurts the most, the couple said. Richard and Crane took their son to Freeman Funeral Home in Pompano Beach. After several issues, with the help of a coordinator, they found a new funeral home to take their son’s body. 

The lawsuit against Freeman Funeral Home said that when a representative from the new funeral home went to pick up their son, they discovered inhumane and horrifying conditions. 

“He was just unrecognizable,” Richard said. “I have three other children, and when somebody passes away, you trust the funeral home, and I felt like I trusted them.”

“Only way he found our son is because he saw a little toe sticking under a grown human male,” Crane said. 

According to the lawsuit, the body’s remains were crushed underneath the body of a dead man. Richard and Crane’s attorney, Jesse O’hara with O’Hara Legal, filed the lawsuit last July.

“I’ve handled a lot of cases, and this one sticks out to me,”  O’Hara said.

O’Hara said the funeral home and its owner, DeBarris James, according to court documents, didn’t hire a lawyer or participate in the case, and the court declared Richard and Crane the winners. He said the amount of money that the parents are owed is still to be determined in a hearing later this month.

“We’ll never know exactly what just happened at this facility,” O’Hara said.

In 2023, investigators said James and his mother tried to steal the Freeman Macon Funeral home from an elderly man. According to court documents, James once worked at the business.

O’Hara said he’s paying close attention to the case, which is set to go to trial this week.

“I have a suspicion that there’s some overlap and they’re related, but remains to be seen,” he said.

Nearly a year later, the parents are still trying to figure out how to move forward, with no answers about what happened.

“We don’t have anything to remember him by; it hurt us even more every day waking up,” Crane said. “It hurts, can’t get it back, very painful.”

“To see the pictures of my child and how he just deteriorated, it crushed my soul,” Richard said.

NBC6 reached out to the owner of Freeman Funeral Home for comment.