Body found in funeral home van after funeral director’s drunk driving arrest.

Thomas Clock III

MUSKEGON COUNTY – The body of an 86-year-old woman was found in the back of Thomas Clock III’s funeral van last January, just days after the funeral director was arrested for drunk driving and hospitalized, according to mlive.

Clock allegedly buried an empty urn, misleading family members who believed it contained her cremated ashes, according the mlive article.

The empty urn was buried in a local cemetery after a funeral service Dec. 28, prosecutors told mlive.

Clock, 60, the owner-operator of the now-closed Clock funeral homes in Ludington and Whitehall, was lodged in the Muskegon County Jail Friday, March 4, on felony charges of common law fraud and attempted larceny by conversion $1,000-$20,000. He is also being charged with a misdemeanor of violating the occupational code by conducting mortuary services without a valid license.

Clock also faces a misdemeanor of driving while intoxicated for a Jan. 9 incident, according to mlive.

The funeral director was performing funeral and mortuary services without a license since Oct. 31, the prosecutor’s office told mlive.

Thomas Clock III’s cousin, Dale Clock, told mlive that staff of his unaffiliated Muskegon funeral home discovered the woman’s body after his business heard that there was a body in the back of his cousin’s van.

The body was discovered days after Thomas Clock III’s Jan. 9 drunk-driving arrest. Dale Clock’s staff investigated, learned the woman’s identity and notified her relatives, who notified law enforcement, Dale Clock told mlive.

The woman, Helen Beatrice Anthony, died Dec. 3.

Dale Clock and his wife, Jodi Clock, own Clock Funeral Home Inc. in Muskegon, Fruitport and Grand Haven. Their business is not affiliated with Thomas Clock III’s now-closed funeral homes in Ludington and Whitehall and hasn’t been for more than 20 years.

Clock Funeral Homes Inc. cremated Anthony’s remains and gave them to her family, Dale Clock said.