50 Bodies Found In U-Haul Trucks Outside New York City Funeral Home


A foul smell outside a Brooklyn funeral home led to the discovery of dozens of bodies kept in unrefrigerated rented U-Haul trucks, as well as additional bodies lying on the floor inside the establishment.
Fox News reported that the New York Police Department was called to the Flatlands neighborhood of Brooklyn and discovered the bodies at the Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home. The bodies were stacked in four rented trucks. Law enforcement sources told The New York Post that between 40 and 60 bodies were discovered in the trucks and on the facility’s floor.
“The corpses were stacked on top of each other in the trucks. Fluid leaking from inside created a terrible smell and caused neighboring store owners to call the police, according to sources,” the Post reported. “NYPD detectives were joined by several other city agencies investigating the trucks at the Utica Avenue facility Wednesday evening, with the section of the street closed off to the public.”
John DiPietro, who owns property next to the funeral home, told the Post he saw bodies being stored in the trucks for several weeks.
“You don’t respect the dead that way. That could have been my father, my brother,” he told the outlet. “You don’t do that to the dead.”
The owner of another neighboring property told the outlet that the situation was a “disaster.”
“They were storing them in U-Haul trucks; we knew what was going on but not the extent,” the owner said. “One thing to be [killed] by the coronavirus, another to be treated inhumanly.”
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams told the Post that he was there when police arrived, but wouldn’t confirm any details.
“We need to bring in funeral directors, morgues, [medical examiners], clergies … when you find bodies in trucks like this throughout our city, treating them in an undignified manner, that’s unacceptable,” he said.
A spokesperson for the New York Health Department told the Post they were actively looking into the situation but wouldn’t comment further.
“The funeral home told officers that the bodies were supposed to be going to a crematorium but its staff didn’t come to pick them up,” the Post reported.
An anonymous official told The New York Times that the trucks were used to store the bodies after the facility’s freezer broke.
More from the Post:
Workers, some not wearing protective equipment, could be seen taking bodies from the facility into the night.
A tarp was extended from the building to shield the process as Dodge Caravan minivans backed up onto the sidewalk to receive the corpses. A gentle wind occasionally blew the tarp back to reveal the body bags as they were wheeled into the minivans on gurneys.
“You don’t see this all over the city — especially in a residential neighborhood,” one shocked cop told The Post. “Never seen anything like this.”
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