Maryland State Police issued arrest warrants for the operators of Heaven Bound Cremation Services, alleging that they mishandled the remains of seven fetuses and a 2-month-old infant, according to a statement by Charles County State’s Attorney Tony Covington.
Brandon Williams, 50, and his wife, Rosa Williams, 48, were each charged with eight counts of improper disposal of human remains, Covington said in the statement posted Thursday.
Covington did not respond to questions about whether the two would face additional charges related to the operation of the crematory.
The Williamses did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Heaven Bound was forced to stop operating in January 2025 after investigators found a broken cremation chamber and a pile of decomposing bodies in its White Plains location. Documents show that 18 of the bodies were not kept at the right temperature, and at least three of them were “visibly decomposing.”
On Jan. 14, the Maryland Health Department ordered Charles County to declare the conditions at the crematory “dangerous” to public health. Three days later, Maryland’s Board of Morticians and Funeral Directors suspended the licenses for Heaven Bound and its owners, forcing the crematory to shut down.
The Washington Post reported in February 2025 that its analysis of hundreds of pages of disciplinary documents, state records and statutes found that the board charged with regulating Maryland’s death industry had for years seen alarming activity at Heaven Bound, including the improper disposal of human remains and boxes of bodies crawling with flies. But instead of using its authority to close the crematory, the board repeatedly put the business on probation, allowing it to continue to take in people from funeral homes — and the D.C. medical examiner’s office.
Heaven Bound was the sole cremation services contractor for the District, which over seven years paid it more than $900,000 for handling thousands of bodies. Many of them were among the District’s poorest and most vulnerable residents, including those who died as crime victims, while homeless or as wards of the state.
Maryland state health officials said last year that they were not aware of the conditions at the crematory until after the January inspection.
The crematory’s abrupt shutdown forced D.C. and Maryland, along with funeral homes, to reclaim hundreds of cremated remains, commonly referred to as cremains, and at least two dozen bodies. Families across the region, meanwhile, were left waiting for ashes and answers.
“There are so many people who have been mishandled in this mess, and the majority of them are people who have lived in poverty or were unhoused and lived without the dignity of a home,” Rachelle Ellison, a homeless advocate in the District, told The Post last year. “Now they’re being mishandled in death and treated like this, without dignity. It’s not right.”
Marissa Lang, Katie Shepherd and Katie Mettler contributed to this report.
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