Family wants answers after mother's casket found on Detroit's west side in an alley

DETROIT – A discovery on Detroit's west side has sparked a police investigation.

A casket left in an alley was posted on social media. Not long after the post was made relatives of the name on the casket arrived and were shocked to find out what was inside and what else was nearby.

A house on Rosemont Avenue was being renovated and because of that a few caskets were stacked on top of each other. One was found in an alley with a woman's name on it.

The woman is Dorothy Feagin, the mother of seven children. Faegin died in 2000 and was buried in Gethsemane Cemetery on the east side of Detroit. Swanson funeral home handled the arrangements.

"Soon as we found out about this we came straight here," Lawrence Feagin said.

Police did not find Feagin's remains inside, but they did find the skull of a dog.

"How did dog remains get in my mom's casket. And where is her body? When she was buried 19 years ago," Feagin said.

Police said the man who lived in the home was a mortician. A search of public records revealed a man who lived there died in August of 2017 and had a license in mortuary science.

"No family member deserves to have a casket with their name on it in the alley," Lori Battle said.

The family hasn't reached the funeral home yet but doesn't suspect anything sinister. But there was a second casket the original one was too small so the funeral home got another one for their mom.

How one of them may have ended up at the house as well as two others with animal remains inside is what police said they'll be looking into.


About the Authors:

Jason is Local 4’s utility infielder. In addition to anchoring the morning newscast, he often reports on a variety of stories from the tragic, like the shootings at Michigan State, to the off-beat, like great gas station food.

Kayla is a Web Producer for ClickOnDetroit. Before she joined the team in 2018 she worked at WILX in Lansing as a digital producer.