A man who stole a funeral home transport vehicle with a body inside from Grady Memorial Hospital was in jail Monday, and a funeral home was blaming hospital security in the incident.
Suspect Henry Lyles, 34, was in Douglas County Jail facing two counts of carjacking in the crime, which occurred Sunday morning, authorities said.
Willie Watkins, owner of Willie A. Watkins Funeral Home in Atlanta, told Channel 2 Action News “even the dead cannot rest in peace” after finding out it was one of his vehicles involved in the carjacking.
The funeral home said hospital security was suppose to accompany funeral home employees who retrieve bodies, but a hospital spokeswoman said no such policy exists.
Funeral home employee William Lyles went to Grady just before 10 a.m. Sunday to pick up a body, according to an Atlanta police incident report released Monday.
The suspect, later identified as Henry Lyles, approached the employee and asked if he needed help. Police have given no indication that Henry Lyles and William Lyles are related.
William Lyles went inside the hospital to retrieve the body, returned to load the body into the the funeral home’s gray Ford Flex and was about to get in to drive away when the suspect “snatched the keys,” the report said.
Henry Lyles then pushed William Lyles down and drove off, according to the report.
After driving through a fence near the hospital’s morgue entrance, the thief deserted the heavily damaged Ford Flex a few blocks away near the intersection of Auburn and Piedmont avenues.
“The suspect apparently noticed the body inside the Ford Flex or got spooked and exited it at the listed intersection,” police said in the report.
At the same location, Henry Lyles forced Cody Baynum out of his 2002 Ford Explorer, asking Baynum “if he wanted to die today,” according to an incident report.
Henry Lyles was arrested later Sunday in Douglas County. In addition to the carjacking charges , he was charged with one count of theft by receiving, Atlanta police spokeswoman Kim Jones said.
William Lyles was able to recover the body from the stolen funeral home vehicle, police said.
Willie Watkins was in Miami celebrating his daughter’s graduation when his brother, Darryl Watkins, told him about the stolen vehicle, Channel 2 Action News reported.
“I do not take it lightly when something like this happens,” said Watkins, who blamed the incident on Grady security.
Darryl Watkins told Channel 2 that security guards normally escort the funeral home’s drivers to their vehicles, but added, “They have a new procedure down at Grady due to construction, so somehow there was a breach. I don’t know what happened to security.”
In a statement to Channel 2, the hospital said it has never been the policy for security to escort funeral home workers.
“It’s just when you think about it,” Willie Watkins told Channel 2, “even the dead cannot rest in peace.”
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