In a rapidly widening investigation of metro Detroit funeral homes, Detroit Police executed a search warrant at a west-side funeral home near Wayne State University and removed 63 remains of fetuses, police said.

Custody of the remains — found at the Perry Funeral Home, on Trumbull just north of Warren Avenue — was turned over to state investigators, who immediately declared the business closed and its license suspended, according to a statement from Michigan Licensing and Regulatory Affairs.

Of the grisly total, there were 36 fetuses stored in boxes and another 27 found in freezers, police said. Friday’s discovery of the decomposed remains followed a similar grisly finding last week at the defunct Cantrell Funeral Home on Detroit’s east side, where 11 infants’ remains were found after an anonymous letter arrived in the offices of state regulators in Lansing.

http://time.com/5430253/police-remains-63-fetuses-detroit-funeral-home/

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2018/10/20/63-fetuses-detroit-funeral-home-lawsuit/1709599002/

Friday's raid at the Perry home came after Detroit homicide detectives also raided QA Cantrell Funeral Home in Eastpointe to investigate a potential connection with the fetuses found in the ceiling of Cantrell Funeral Home in Detroit. Detectives seized computers, business cellphones, and paperwork, according to a news release. They also raided the home of the owner, Anetta Cantrell, the widow of the deceased founder of the Detroit home with the same name.

Detroit Police Chief James Craig said he was stunned.

"I’ve never seen anything (like this) in my 41 and a half years” as a police officer, Craig said, at a news conference on Friday, adding: “It’s disturbing, but we will get to the bottom of this.”

Craig said police were tipped off to violations at the Perry Funeral Home by a father involved in a civil suit over the improper burial of his infant daughter.

Lawyers for the father as well as the mother of the deceased baby said the parents are plaintiffs in a lawsuit that they hope will allow them to represent dozens, perhaps scores, of parents whose infant remains were improperly handled by the Perry Funeral Home. The case could become a class-action lawsuit representing every parent who comes forward with a similar complaint, Troy attorney Peter Parks said.

“We already thought we had a strong case, and then when the news starting hitting the media about Cantrell, our clients agreed that we should take what we knew to the highest level” of the Detroit Police Department, Parks said Friday.