A Pennsylvania funeral director already charged with abusing corpses for allegedly taking cellphone pictures of the dead to "gross out" her friends and family now faces additional charges of evidence-tampering.
The Monroe County District Attorney's office alleges that Angeliegha Stewart deleted four images from her Google photos account during an ongoing investigation. Prosecutors said two of the photos were selfies with bodies in the background, and two others were of the faces of deceased people.
Authorities say the 27-year-old took pictures of one corpse during an organ-harvesting process and others of a decomposing corpse. Some of the corpses were in caskets; some were not. She faces two dozen abuse of corpse charges.
The district attorney's office says 16 families were affected.
Stewart also faces a marijuana charge, after Monroe County detectives found conversations about deals when they searched her phone last month amid their investigation into the photos.
During an interview with county detectives, Stewart admitted to taking photos of corpses as a joke and also admitted to selling marijuana, according to a criminal complaint obtained by NBC10.
The Lanterman & Allen Funeral Home in East Stroudsburg has said officials are "disappointed" by the allegations and are cooperating with authorities.
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"Based on our investigation, both sets of charges are completely baseless and appear to be the result of a targeted investigation," defense attorney Corey Kolcharno said. "We are determined to find out why."
