A jury awarded $8million on Tuesday to the grieving parents of a young woman whose body was lost by a San Antonio funeral home before she was to be cremated in 2015.
A company which operates numerous funeral homes and cemeteries in the San Antonio area was negligent in losing the corpse of Julie Mott, a 25-year-old woman who died on August 8, 2015 from cystic fibrosis, the jury found.
MPII Inc, which is known as Mission Park Funeral Chapels and Cemeteries, was ordered to pay the sum to Sharlotte and Timothy Mott, who were not in the courtroom when the verdict was read.
Robert Tips and his wife, Kristin, own and operate MPII Inc. They were ordered to pay the Motts, former friends who they had known in years past.
MPII Inc. has accused an ex-boyfriend of Julie Mott’s, Bill Wilburn, 31, of stealing the body.
A jury awarded $8million on Tuesday to Tim and Sharlotte Mott (seen in the above file photo), the grieving parents of a young woman whose body was lost by a San Antonio funeral home before she was to be cremated in 2015
A company which operates numerous funeral homes and cemeteries in the San Antonio area was negligent in losing the corpse of Julie Mott, pictured,
MPII Inc, which is known as Mission Park Funeral Chapels and Cemeteries, was ordered to pay the sum to Sharlotte and Timothy Mott, who were not in the courtroom for the verdict. Pictured in court earlier this month
Robert Tips (seen above during one of the courtroom proceedings earlier this month) and his wife, Kristin, own and operate MPII Inc. They were ordered to pay the Motts
Timothy Mott, who once worked as a pilot for Tips, suffered a heart attack on Friday and was at home resting when the verdict was announced, according to the Houston Chronicle.
He and his wife will receive $1.5milion each for mental anguish sustained in the past and $2.5million each for mental anguish ‘that, in reasonable probability, will be sustained in the future.’
The only time during the three-week civil suit that the Motts were inside the courtroom was when they had to testify.
It took the jury three hours to deliberate and render their verdict.
‘The Motts are happy that they got a jury verdict, but in the end we failed, as we did not find Julie, and that is all that really matters,’ the couple’s attorney, Mark Greenwald, said.
The Motts won the lawsuit, but their daughter’s body remains missing.
‘This isn’t about the money,’ Greenwald said. ‘It’s not going to return their daughter.’
Julie Mott’s funeral took place on August 15, 2015 at a facility run by the funeral home.
The next day, her body was supposed to be cremated.
Julie Mott’s funeral took place on August 15, 2015 at a facility run by the funeral home. The next day, her body was supposed to be cremated
MPII Inc, which is known as Mission Park Funeral Chapels and Cemeteries, pictured, was ordered to pay the sum to Sharlotte and Timothy Mott
But when employees came in to work, they were shocked to discover that her body was missing from a damaged casket.
Mott’s family sued the funeral home in January of 2016 after documents came to light that showed a third party mortuary service, Beyer & Beitel, and their employees had ‘unfettered’ access to the morgue – and could be to blame for the missing remains.
Beyer & Beitel was sued for mixing up two bodies months before Mott’s disappearance and settled the case.
Initially, the owners of the company which operated the funeral home accused Julie Mott’s ex-boyfriend, Bill Wilburn, of stealing the body.
Wilburn, the owners alleged, was ‘obsessed with calling and texting’ Julie Mott and he stole the body because he did not want to see her cremated.
Wilburn and Julie Mott were separated for two years at the time of her death, according to the San Antonio Express-News.
Initially, the owners of the company which operated the funeral home accused Julie Mott’s (left) ex-boyfriend, Bill Wilburn (right), 31, of stealing the body
In February of last year, Wilburn, 31, was arrested and charged with trespassing after he was filmed by surveillance cameras showing up at the funeral home, KSAT-TV reported.
In June of 2016, he twice went into the funeral home in violation of an order to stay away.
On the day of Julie Mott’s memorial service – August 15, 2015 – Wilburn was seen remaining the chapel an extra 10-to-15 minutes after everyone had left.
After the service, Mott’s casket was moved to a hallway to await transfer to a different Mission Park location for cremation.
At around 4:30pm that day, staff locked up the building and activated the building’s ADT alarm system.
The next morning, the body was missing.
The jury, however, rejected the allegations by the company that Wilburn had stolen the body.
The San Antonio police continue to investigate the body’s disappearance.
The San Antonio police continue to investigate the body’s disappearance. Wilburn remains a person of interest in the case
Wilburn remains a person of interest in the case.
‘MPII lost Julie Mott’s body,’ another of the Motts’ attorneys, Alex Katzman, told the jury in his closing argument.
‘The company claims someone came in and stole it. Whether they lost or mishandled it, it really doesn’t matter. They had custody and control, and they lost her body.’
Katzman said the company did not property train its employees and also did not notify the Motts that they were using Beyer and Beitel as a third-party contractor for embalming purposes.
The attorney quoted MPII’s own advertising motto in his closing argument.
‘“When you trust your loved ones to us, they never leave our care, custody or control”,’ he said.
‘They made a promise. This is about what they were required to do.’
Attorneys for the Tipses maintained that Julie Mott’s body was stolen.
‘The greater weight of credible evidence in this case is that for more than 100 years, they’ve taken care of San Antonio families, and there’s never been a body stolen,’ Ricardo Reyna, the defense lawyer, told the jury.
Reyna showed the jury a contract he says the Motts signed which clearly states that a third-party would do the embalming.
‘Even Fred Beyer said at one time or another, all funeral homes use them,’ Reyna said.
‘Using B&B didn’t cause the remains to be stolen.’
Reyna told the jury that it should award the Motts $125,000 to cover expenses for three years of intense therapy, which is what a mental health expert testified they needed.
Ron Salazar, a lawyer for the Motts replied: ‘Is 125,000 the value of a destroyed life?’
The case, which generated nationwide attention, had some dramatic moments.
Lawyers wheeled in a casket into the courtroom during the proceedings to show the jury how bodies are properly placed and removed.
The attorneys wanted to demonstrate to the jury that the casket holding Julie Mott’s body was damaged because someone removed her corpse from the top, rather than the proper way which is from a trap door that lowers at the foot.
Neither the Motts or the Tipses were available for comment after the verdict was announced.