A Texas funeral director may be sanctioned for taking dozens of selfies in front of caskets and hearses after he was reportedly caught in the act over the weekend.
Rose Molina told Houston’s ABC News affiliate that she was preparing to bury her 32-year-old cousin Saturday when she saw the funeral director, David L. Jones, apparently posing for a selfie in front of the hearse where a casket containing her cousin’s body had just been placed.
“You could see that he had it kind of angled, you know, you have it positioned in a certain way to catch the background,” she told the station.
Ms. Molina approached the funeral director afterwards and asked him if he had just taken a snapshot of himself, but she says he claimed he was only adjusting his tie. Afterwards, however, she found his public Facebook page and discovered no fewer than two dozen selfies of Mr. Jones posing in front of various hearses, caskets or both.
“We were mourning the loss of my cousin, to be a very family event, private event, it’s tainted,” Ms. Molina said. “He disrespected this day in my family’s life.”
The owner of the funeral home that held Saturday’s service told the ABC affiliate that Mr. Jones is an independent contractor and said the alleged incident occurred during a ceremony in Jacinto City. The owner declined to speak to the station on camera, but reportedly called the contractor’s actions unacceptable and has personally apologized to Ms. Molina’s family.
Ms. Molina said she intends to file a formal grievance against Mr. Jones, who is a licensed funeral director in Texas and has not had any complaints made against him, the affiliate reported. The Texas Funeral Services Commission told the station that Mr. Jones could be fined up to $5,000 if it ultimately finds him in violation.
Mr. Jones’s Facebook page says he studied funeral directing and embalming at the “comminwealth institute of funeral services” [sic] in Houston, and previously worked at Paradise Funeral Home.
“We bury 700 a year,” Mr. Jones wrote in a Facebook comment earlier this month. Personally, he plans to be cremated and receive “a full Masonic funeral” after his death, he wrote in an earlier post.
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