Funeral Home Director Bobby Wilks Buried Corpses In Coffins Filled With Trash

How could people let loved ones end up in trash? Bobby Wilks convinced folks the last thing they wanted was watching a casket go down.

After selling families a burial vault, a structure meant to stop a casket from sinking, he acted like a respectful funeral director. He insisted a family's final memory should not involve seeing their loved one lowered into the ground. Once they were gone, he would remove thevault, and if the family was lucky, they could just bury the deceased in their coffin and buy the vault again.

Bobby Wilks overcharged people for burial vaults he never used. Sometimes, he would not bury a body in a coffin. There is no logic for why he chose tojust dump it in a shallow hole, but he often acted careless, tossing a body without even putting it in a coffin.

An exhumed grave showed Wilks' lack of empathy for the families who hired him. Police found a coffin buried sideways; the dead's body parts spilled out.

Wilks turned the bodies he was supposed to bury into his personal garbage dump. After Wilks was caught, police dug up recent burials and found many caskets held the deceased plus rubbish like apple cores and dog food cans.

Mary Masterson foundBobby Wilks buried corpses in coffins filled with trash, including soft drink bottles.in her mother's casket told UPI: "I could kill him easily. One phone call. She is not a garbage disposal."

After working with Wilks for years, his coworkers started suspecting something was wrong with his work. Mortician Al Jessie of Robertson County called the funeral home run by Wilks a "Coworkers suspected Bobby Wilks because he used a shotgun in a happy-go-lucky operation.." That does not sound like what you want in a funeral home.

Jessie told the Tennessee Funeral Board he once saw Wilks move a body in his Volkswagen bus because "the weather was too bad" to use a hearse.

Bobby Wilks buried victims without clear reason. Some ended up in caskets; others became human trash cans. After exhuming many buried bodies, police found Joseph Roath's corpse had simplywrapped in cardboardSome victims of Bobby Wilks were buried in cardboard and tossed in a shallow grave.

The three-foot-deep hole and cardboard coffin were not where his family thought Roath would be. His family paid for both a casket and a vault. Wilks never confirmed if this cardboard burial stemmed from a personal grudge against Roath.

Wilks' smooth operations stopped when Donald Flatt became suspicious about his burial methods. UPI reported Donald Flatt hid in a church near Wilks' workplace. Flatt saw Wilks bury a relative's body without the vault his family paid for. Flatt then exhumed Danny Ray Pith's body.

Police found more than just a coffin buried without a vault. Pith's casket contained trash.The trash included rotten apple cores.A vacuum cleaner bag filled with dirt and dust was found with Pith's body.

After finding the first trash-filled casket, Flatt had his mother's body exhumed. He discovered her casket lacked a vault, and someone stole her wristwatch.

Bobby Wilks served almost 30 years in prison.Wilks died in 2017.Wilks died at age 81 in a hospital near Nashville. Before dying, Wilks served the rest of his sentence at the Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Prison Facility. He had a rough time in prison; the first weeks of his sentence involved solitary confinement.Wilks served solitary confinement for his own safety.Corrections officers thought family members of those Wilks failed to bury properly would seek revenge. Wilks survived most of his sentence.

Wilks did not use his nearly three decades in prison to improve himself or consider the harm he caused dozens of people. Wilks remained a bad person. Initially, he acted well enough to get a job as the head of the children's nursery.Wilks became the head of the children's nursery at the Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Prison Facility. Parents dropped off their children at the nursery for Wilks to watch them during visits.Bobby Wilks buried corpses in coffins filled with trash at the Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Prison Facility. Parents dropped off their kids at the nursery for Wilks to watch them.

Assistant District Attorney Dent Morris of Robertson County accused Wilks of child molestation while he worked in the nursery. Morris later convicted him on six counts of child abuse.Wilks was convicted on six counts of child abuse..

After Wilks was caught, he quickly folded and pleaded guilty to two counts of grand larceny.Wilks pleaded guilty to two counts of grand larceny.Wilks also pleaded guilty to 48 counts of burial fraud for burying bodies without the coffins and vaults families had purchased.Wilks pleaded guilty to 48 counts of burial fraud..

Wilks lost his mortician's license. A judge sentenced him to 28 years and 11 months, added to his jail time for grand larceny. Wilks entered prison at age 59, likely knowing he would never see the outside world again.

Many families hired Bobby Wilks because they knew him since childhood. Wilks grew up and settled in Sumner County, Tennessee, where he worked most of his time as a funeral home owner and undertaker.

It seems impossible for someone you knew long ago to defile bodies like that. Bobby Flatt, the brother of the man who caught Bobby Wilks, told UPI, "I never suspected anything. I trusted Bobby."We grew up together.I did not want to find anything wrong.

When the police learned how Wilks disposed of bodies, they had to exhumate his recent clients' bodies during the summer of 1989. The police dug up bodies.They dug up more than 30 bodies.They found someone wrapped in "an indoor carpet.Many bodies were barely buried under the surface.

Police investigated and exhumed bodies across Tennessee and Kentucky. Wilks went to prison for his crimes but never spoke about what he did. Thus, no one knows how long he buried people incorrectly.

After police began exhuming bodies Wilks barely buried, no one knew how to handle the idea. Local undertaker's carelessness and cruelty toward loved ones shocked people. The Tennessee state Funeral Board fined Wilks $6,000 beforestripping him of his license.No one knew how to handle the news that their undertaker was a grave robber.

Helen Roath, whose husband was buried in cardboard after she faced nearly $4,000 for burial prep, said she could not sleep thinking about how Wilks treated his clients' dead.

The Bobby Wilks case changed Tennessee law on corpse abuse. County Assistant District Attorney Dent Morris stated that before Wilks was caught, therewas no actual state lawabout violating corpses, by mishandling or other means. Morris explained, "In response to the Bobby Wilks case, the Legislator passed a specific statute governing corpse abuse that remains today."