An Ohio pastor was arrested months ago for acting as an unlicensed funeral director. The pastor is now facing additional charges after law enforcement officials discovered 89 cremated body remains in abandoned church. A woman calling herself an “urban explorer” told police what was going on after she found several boxes and bags containing cremated remains on the first floor of Greater Faith Missionary Baptist Church according to the Daily Mail. 

The Ohio Bureau of Investigation opened their investigation into the incident on Jan. 11. According to the search warrant affidavit, the woman says that she noticed some of the remains were labeled with dates going back to 2010.

“There’s significant health issues, significant dignity issues,” OBI representative told News 5 Cleveland. “This is not just a regulatory issue. And some of the things we’re seeing there are just not right.”

The church has been abandoned since Hardin’s arrest in September. At the time, the pastor faced 44 separate charges after two bodies were found in a building in Columbus, which he had been using for funeral services.

The pastor was originally charged with racketeering, tampering with records, identity fraud and abuse of a corpse in Lucas County, Hardin was later charged with related crimes in Cuyahoga, Summit and Franklin counties, News 5 reported. The charges alleged he operated several funeral homes across the state in 2019, authorities charged Hardin with abuse of a corpse, representation as a funeral director while unlicensed, operating an unlicensed funeral home and failure to refrigerate a human body.

Hardin’s attorney Richard Kerger says the remains discovered at Greater Faith belong to Robert Tate, Jr., a former funeral director who approached the pastor in 2017, asking that he store the remains on his behalf. However, the family of Joseph Blackshear, whose remains were found in last week’s discovery, confirmed that they were told by Hardin that he had been buried next to another relative at the time of his funeral in 2004.

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