Four bodies were discovered in the garage of unlicensed mortician Anton Godfrey, who died of a heart attack two weeks ago
Four bodies, a box of cremated remains and a container of organs were discovered in the garage of an unlicensed Illinois mortician just two weeks after he died of a heart attack, police said.
The widow of Anton Godfrey, 43, discovered the first body while she was cleaning out the garage at their Riverdale home on Wednesday and immediately called police.
Police said Godfrey had received multiple court orders to stop 'cease and desist his in-home mortuary practices', according to the Chicago Tribune.
He had also been fined $10,000 in 2013 for the 'unlicensed practice of funeral directing and embalming'.
The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation also revealed that Godfrey had never been licensed in the state.
The coroner's office was working to identify the remains, which were in various stages of decomposition, and authorities were beginning to notify relatives.
Godfrey's twin brother Antonio said he believed his brother was in the process of arranging the discovered bodies' burials when he suffered a sudden massive heart attack on August 28.
'I understand he wasn't licensed and this looks gory, it looks bad,' said Antonio Godfrey Sr.
'But he never did anything like that. His intents were to get the bodies to the proper burials but he passed away.'
A box of cremated remains and a container of organs were also discovered on Wednesday in the Riverdale, Illinois garage
Godfrey's widow discovered the first body while she was cleaning out the garage at their Riverdale home on Wednesday and immediately called police
Antonio said he didn't want his brother to be remembered as 'some kind of butcher or animal', but as the minister who helped families who couldn't afford to bury their loved ones.
'According to the law he was doing wrong,' Antonio told the Chicago Tribune. 'But according to the God he served, he was helping people.'
But the news has still left a number of Godfrey's past customers shaken.
That includes Cortez Williams. Five tombstones were found on Godfrey's property Thursday, two of which had the names of his wife and mother-in-law.
Williams told the Chicago Tribune he paid Godfrey for both of the grave markers, his mother-in-law's in 2009 and then in 2013 when his wife passed away from breast cancer, but never received either.
'This brings it all back,' he told the paper. 'It's like reliving my wife's death all over'.
Tombstones that had never been delivered to customers were also discovered piled near the garage, including those for Cortez Williams' wife and mother-in-law, who said he paid for but never received the grave markers
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