3 charged with several counts of forgery, abuse of corpses

Three people have been arrested and charged with several counts of forgery and abuse of corpse.

On 09/12/2014 the owner of , Mortuary Services Inc, Joseph Solis, was arrested by the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Division on 37 counts of Forgery and 35 counts of Abuse of Corpse and booked into the El Paso County Jail with bonds totaling $405,000.00.

On 09/17/2014 the owner of El Paso Mission Funeral Home, Lina Ruedas, was arrested by Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Division on 5 counts each of Forgery, Tampering with a Government Record, and Abuse of Corpse with bonds totaling $225,000.00.

Additionally Ruedas’ son, Antonio Ruedas was arrested by Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Division Detectives on 1 count of forgery, 1 count of Tampering with a Government Record, and 3 counts of Abuse of Corpse with bonds totaling $75,000.00.

The investigation began when the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Division was notified by the El Paso County Clerk’s Office that they received a government document that contained an unauthorized electronic signature of the County Clerks department head Delia Briones.

The document, a Burial Transit Permit, was allegedly used by Solis to transport a body out of the State of Texas.

The County Clerk’s Office advised the Sheriff’s Office that the unauthorized signature on the form facilitated the removal of the body outside of the State of Texas for MSI.

Sheriff’s officials say they found out that the Texas Funeral Service Commission had suspended MSI’s license as of March 2014 due to an uncontested complaint filed against MSI.

The sheriff’s office also say Solis was forging the name and license number of an out of town funeral director who was not aware and had not authorized Solis to use his information.

Sheriff’s say that Solis used the funeral directors name and license number on the Burial Transit Permits to take possession of decedents and transport them intrastate and interstate, cremate them, or embalm them.

This unauthorized name and license number appeared on official State of Texas forms. Without forging the documents Solis had no legal authority to take possession of decedents, sheriff’s officials say.

Sheriff’s say that Solis used the funeral directors name and license number on the Burial Transit Permits to take possession of decedents and transport them intrastate and interstate, cremate them, or embalm them.

Sheriff’s officials say that Solis also was currently in possession of several bodies and he was storing them at a local funeral home, El Paso Mission Funeral Home located at the 2600 block of East Yandell.

A search warrant was executed at the funeral home where four bodies and a fetus were recovered and turned over to the Medical Examiner’s Office.

At least two of the bodies recovered had passed away in January and February of 2014.

They were found to be in different states of decomposition.

All four of the bodies recovered at El Paso Mission Funeral Home should have been previously cremated according to death certificates obtained from the County Clerk’s Office. It was also learned that El Paso Mission Funeral Home was transporting bodies to Juarez Mexico using tampered documents to facilitate the transport.