Elgin widower's lawsuit: wife wrongly cremated
The husband of an Elgin woman who was killed by a truck last year has filed a suit against a funeral home and crematorium, saying he was uninformed about her death and that her body was cremated against his and her wishes.
Timothy Cahill filed a lawsuit in Kane County this week against the Laird Funeral Home in Elgin and the Twin Pines Crematory in East Dundee.
In it, Cahill claims his wife, Helen F. Cahill, 64, was cremated without his permission, which is a violation of the Illinois Crematory Regulation Act.
Timothy Cahill is suing for more than $50,000 in damages, claiming intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Stephen Laird, president of Laird Funeral Home, said he had not been served with the lawsuit, but called Cahill's claims a “complete fabrication.”
Laird said the Kane County Coroner's Office is the legal entity that authorizes cremations and Helen Cahill's two sons from a previous marriage applied for and were granted a cremation permit.
Stan Hickrod, owner of Twin Pines, said the crematory provides services to funeral homes and all the necessary paperwork from the state and Kane County was submitted beforehand.
“Therefore, we performed a legal cremation,” he said.
Helen Cahill died at Provena St. Joseph Hospital in Elgin on Nov. 22, 2010, after being struck by a truck just before 8 p.m. while she was crossing McLean Boulevard at College Green Drive near Elgin Community College.
Timothy Cahill, an over-the-road truck driver, was staying with his mother in Davenport, Iowa, at the time and didn't hear back from Helen despite numerous phone calls, the lawsuit states.
On Dec. 1, 2010, on what would have been Helen's 65th birthday, Cahill returned to the couple's mobile home in the 900 block of South McLean to discover it had been cleaned out, the suit states.
Cahill called Helen's cellphone several times as well as Sherman Hospital, which had no record of her having been there. Finally, he went back to Iowa and called his sister, who found Helen's obituary online, the lawsuit said.
Cahill called Laird Funeral Home the next day and on Dec. 3 and, according to the suit, a Laird employee told Cahill that the coroner's office had decided on the cremation and Cahill had “no say in it,” despite his objections.
The suit also claims Cahill was told his wife's body was there, but he was not allowed to see her or say goodbye.
The lawsuit argues that Helen's body actually was cremated on Dec. 2 and that in the absence of a will Timothy Cahill should have had control over what happened to Helen's body.
The suit states that Helen wanted to be buried in Tennessee. Her mother is buried in Nashville.
“The complaint speaks for itself,” said Cahill's attorney, Scott Larson. “Most of this will be fleshed out in court.”
The case has an initial court date of Oct. 20 before Judge Judith Brawka.