Parents find son’s brain in box from US funeral homes, lawsuit says
Lawrence and Abbey Butler made the gruesome discovery days later when the unmarked container began to smell and leak fluid
Two funeral homes allegedly gave grieving parents their deceased son’s brain in a box, which began to smell, leaked into their car and got on the father’s hands when he moved it, according to an updated lawsuit filed this week.
The father, Lawrence Butler, said the discovery was overwhelming at a news conference on Thursday, leaving a horrific memory that mars the other memories of a “good young man”, their son, Timothy Garlington.
“It was, and it is still, in my heart that I got in my car and I smelled death,” he said, emotion breaking his voice. Garlington’s mother, Abbey Butler, stood nearby, wiping away tears.
After Garlington’s death in 2023, the Butlers had his remains shipped from one funeral home in Georgia to another in Pennsylvania, where they picked up his belongings, including a white cardboard box that contained an unlabeled red box.
At Nix & Nix Funeral Homes, Abbey Butler could not open the red box, the Butlers’ lawyer, L. Chris Stewart, said at the news conference.
Several days later, the red box, which was in the Butlers’ car, began to smell and leak fluid, Stewart said. When Lawrence Butler picked it up, the fluid covered his hands, “which was brain matter. It’s insane,” Stewart said.