He had the wrong ashes. Now he has his mother's cremains — but he still can't bury her

The day before Mother's Day — the first one since his mom had died — Joe Bowen was at his pregnant daughter's gender reveal party when he got a call.

It was from the co-owner of a Warner Robins crematorium. He had Bowen's mother's ashes.

But Bowen had already buried his mother — or so he thought — after receiving cremains from a Wrightsville funeral home owner.

"People are running around and having a good time," Bowen recalled. "We had just … done the golf thing where my son-in-law hits the ball, and it turns pink or blue, and he had just hit the ball when I got the call, and people were jumping around.

"In that instant is when we got the call," Bowen said. "I didn’t even get to hug my daughter. I didn’t get to say congratulations — nothing. I’m on a phone call thinking, 'What’s going on with this?' And he’s telling me that he was 100 percent sure that he had my mother’s ashes."

The revelation would ultimately lead to an investigation by the GBI and the arrest of John Hall Brantley, owner of Brantley Funeral Home in Wrightsville, on misdemeanor charges in connection with the incident. Brantley has not returned calls seeking comment.

With his wife, Edna, by his side, Bowen, of Waverly Hall, shared his story Tuesday at the office of his Columbus attorney, Brandon Peak.

On Dec. 28 at 1 a.m., Joe Bowen received word from his mother's caregiver that Lottie Marilee Bowen, 70, of Macon, had died at the Medical Center, Navicent Health. He and his wife immediately drove to the hospital.

A few hours later, Bowen began to call funeral homes from his truck in the parking lot of the hospital to make arrangements to cremate his mom. John Hall Brantley was the first to call back, Bowen said.

Brantley sent him the necessary paperwork by email, and Bowen said he paid in advance by credit card for the cremation and the shipping of his mother's cremains.

Since it was the holidays, Bowen realized there might be a delay in receiving his mother's ashes, but he never thought he wouldn't receive the cremains until Feb. 1 when he met Brantley in the parking lot of a Marathon gas station on Ga. 96 near Interstate 16 in Twiggs County.

Brantley had already given Bowen numerous reasons for the delay, including telling him in mid-January he'd outsourced the cremation to a Warner Robins crematorium, Bowen said.

When Brantley finally told Bowen that he had his mother's cremains, it was only three or four days until his mother's funeral Feb. 4 at Monroe Hills Memorial Garden in Forsyth, Bowen said.

"I’m not going to trust in the mail — something may happen. We have all these people coming. I want to drive and meet you," Bowen recalled telling Brantley.

"I’d been waiting a month, so I was getting a little stern with him at this point that I had been put off for as long as I had," Bowen said.

Brantley offered to bring him the cremains, but Bowen was already planning a trip to the burial plot to make sure all was set for the funeral. The men agreed to meet.

Brantley handed Bowen a white box with his mother's name stenciled on it. The men exchanged pleasantries, and that was it. Or so Bowen thought.

Then, Bowen said, he got the call from Jody Scott, co-owner of Burpee-Scott Memorial Chapel Funeral Home & Crematory in Warner Robins.

Burpee-Scott never received payment from Brantley for the contracted service, Bowen said. Scott previously told The Telegraph that he reached out to Bowen after the cremains had been left unclaimed since the Jan. 9 cremation, and Brantley had never returned his calls.

"He told me he didn't want any money," Bowen said of Scott. He recalls Scott telling him, "I just want to get your mom back to you."

Bowen said he's grateful to Scott — otherwise he might never have learned the truth, Bowen said.

He wanted to pay Scott for the cremation because he felt it was "the right thing to do." Bowen is a businessman himself. He and his wife own and operate a heating and cooling business.

Brantley was arrested June 18 on one count of theft by deception and four other misdemeanor counts related to failing to label containers containing cremains.

Three containers with ashes in them were found unlabeled at the funeral home when searched by the GBI on June 15. The GBI also seized Brantley Funeral Home records and exhumed the urn from the cemetery.

A GBI medical examiner is expected to try to determine exactly what was in the urn: human cremains, something else or a mixture of both. The crematorium that Brantley contracted with did nothing wrong, said Scott Whitley, special agent in charge of the GBI's Eastman office

One day, Bowen said, he will bury his mother's true cremains by his father. But he'll have to wait.

Although the GBI has assured Bowen that they believe the ashes he received from Scott are the correct cremains, Bowen said he's also been told the GBI may need to test them at some future point.

Bowen said it was his mother's wish that she be buried next his father and her husband in the Forsyth cemetery.

"I feel like I failed her at that. … I still haven’t been able to carry that task out," Bowen said.

Until he can keep that promise, Bowen said he doesn’t feel like his mother is laid to rest

“To find out somebody else was up there, but not her ... It’s unspeakable," Bowen said. "I can’t put into words how you would feel about something like that.

"I wouldn’t want anybody to go through what I’ve been going through. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody," he said.

This story was originally published June 26, 2018 at 4:36 PM with the headline "He had the wrong ashes. Now he has his mother's cremains — but he still can't bury her."