A pretrial hearing for the two owners and the former manager of a now-closed Jacksonville funeral home was continued Thursday to April 21 to give the prosecutor time to subpoena a former state funeral home investigator whose inquiry led to the arrest of the three men.
Leroy Wood, 87, of Jacksonville, his son Rod Wood, 62, of Heber Springs and Edward Snow, 64, of Cabot face 13 felony counts of abuse of a corpse in the case from January 2015. All three appeared in front of Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza for a pretrial hearing Thursday on motions by the defense.
All but one motion was delayed until the state can bring in Leslie Stokes, a former investigator for the state Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors. Stokes is no longer with the agency and has moved from the area, Deputy Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Tonia Acker told the judge.
Stokes' daily inspections from Jan. 12 to Jan. 16 revealed several violations at Arkansas Funeral Care's holding facility. Stokes said she found, among other things, a cooler filled beyond capacity with bodies, some stacked, and multiple bodies outside the cooler that had not been embalmed and were in various states of decomposition.
Piazza granted a motion to separate the Woods' case from that of Snow's. The Woods' trial is scheduled for April 25. Snow's pretrial hearing is scheduled for May 24, and his trial is scheduled for June 27.
State Desk on 04/08/2016