JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. — A southern Indiana funeral home has officially lost its license after an investigation by the Indiana Attorney General’s Office uncovered that the business showed professional incompetence in how it kept bodies under its care.

According to a news release from the office of Attorney General Todd Rokita, the State Board of Funeral and Cemetery Service revoked the licenses of Lankford Funeral Home and Family Center, as well as the license of the business’s owner, Randy Ray Lankford, on Aug. 3.

According to previous reports, Lankford and the funeral home had their licenses suspended in August 2022 after Jeffersonville police discovered 31 bodies in various stages of decomposition when they searched the facility after a tip came to police regarding an odor coming from the business. Police also found the cremated remains of more than a dozen other people at the home.

When officers responded to the business in July 2022, they found that none of the bodies were being refrigerated and that three of the building’s four air conditioning units were inoperable. They also reported that several bodies were leaking “biological material onto the floors and surfaces.”

“It’s hard to believe the appalling conditions at this funeral home,” Rokita said in the release. “Hoosier families deserve to have their loved ones treated with dignity and respect by funeral homes and their employees… “This is one of the most egregious cases our office has seen in recent times. I’m proud that we were able to work together with local law enforcement to hold Mr. Lankford accountable and make sure he can never practice another funeral service in Indiana ever again.” 

In an official administrative complaint from the Indiana Attorney General’s Office, the office said that the Lankford Funeral Home and Family Center continued to practice despite being unfit to practice due to professional incompetence.

The office also said that the business violated a number of state statutes that regulated the profession, including “failing to dispose of the bodily remains of 31 individuals within a reasonable time after their deaths.” Other violations included that the center did not have a “fully functional embalming room on the premises” and that the center held the cremains of nine people at its facility for more than 60 days after their cremation.