BOSTON, Nov. 14, 2014—Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said today that investigators had conclusively identified all 12 of the bodies recovered from a Weymouth storage facility this year and appealed to the public for help locating the next of kin for three of the deceased.
The announcement comes amid the ongoing prosecution of JOSEPH V. O’DONNELL (D.O.B. 9/10/58), who is currently facing 278 charges including improper disposal of human remains, larceny, embezzlement, forgery, uttering, returning a false death certificate, and acting as a funeral director without a license.
An investigation began earlier this year after O’Donnell, whose Neponset Avenue funeral home was foreclosed on in 2013, failed to return funds provided by clients who entered into a pre-need contract to cover the cost of future funerals. Suffolk prosecutors in July obtained a warrant to search a Weymouth storage unit held by O’Donnell and inside discovered the remains of 12 individuals who died years earlier.
Investigators have successfully identified all of the 12 individuals and have located next of kin for nine; of those families, eight had previously received cremated remains belonging to someone other than their loved one.
Boston Police detectives, Suffolk prosecutors, and civilian investigators assigned to Conley’s office undertook an exhaustive search for relatives of the remaining three decedents but have been unable to locate them. Conley today released the names of those three individuals in hopes of locating their families.
The deceased have been identified as:
- William J. McDougall, born in Washington state and a resident of the St. Joseph Nursing Center in Dorchester when he died at age 67;
- Maggie Moore, born in Alabama and a resident of the Annemark Nursing Home in Revere at the time of her death at age 65; and
- Sadie Waddy, born in Virginia and a resident of Bay Pointe Rehab in Brockton when she died at age 90.
Anyone with information may contact civilian investigator Brian Bukuras of the DA’s Special Prosecutions Unit at 617-619-4144.
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All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
