License of Howard funeral home director temporarily suspended. ‘Clear danger to public health’
The licenses of a Howard funeral home director and his business have been temporarily suspended by state regulators who said inspections found he improperly handled two corpses and cremated five others without authorization.
The state board of funeral directors said in an order filed Monday that the allegations, if taken as true, make Garrett A. Singer and his Singer-Kader-Neff Funeral Home an “immediate and clear danger to public health and safety.”
Singer’s attorney Jim Kutz told the Centre Daily Times on Thursday that “we respectfully disagree.” Kutz also said he did not understand how temporarily shuttering the funeral home helps those in the Howard area.
A preliminary hearing is to be conducted within 30 days of Monday.
Singer, 33, has faced a whirlwind of legal actions in the past two weeks, including a lawsuit and a criminal charge related to allegations he allowed a woman’s corpse decompose on a table for nearly six weeks at the 135 W. Main St. funeral home.
The document filed by state regulators included allegations Singer mishandled six others.
During the same mid-December inspection when the woman’s corpse was found, investigators said the corpse of a person from Bellefonte was on the floor of a vehicle outside of the facility. The body had been there for four days, regulators said, and was neither embalmed nor refrigerated.
Singer was also accused of cremating five people — four who died in Clinton County and one who died in Centre County — without receiving authorization from the appropriate coroner’s office.
Those unauthorized cremations, which took place at various dates in 2024, prevented authorities from determining the cause of death and circumstances surrounding them, regulators wrote.
An inspection carried out in November also found the funeral home’s preparation room was not maintained in a “clean and sanitary manner.” The embalming table had remnants of an embalming that occurred about two weeks before the inspection, regulators wrote.
Investigators also said they discovered bloody towels, used gloves and body bags, clothing and trash in the preparation room. One trash can was overflowing, they wrote.
If the board finds sufficient initial evidence after the preliminary hearing, the temporary suspension will remain in effect. If the case is not established, Singer’s licenses are to be immediately restored.
Singer is a native of Pleasant Gap and graduated from Bellefonte Area High School in 2009, according to the funeral home’s website. He took ownership of the long-time Howard funeral home in July 2023.
Singer did not file a response to the lawsuit as of Thursday afternoon. His attorney previously told the CDT some of the allegations in the suit, which was brought by the daughter of the woman whose body was allegedly left to decompose, are “not factually accurate.” He also said none of the delays were brought about “intentionally or willfully.”
In the criminal case that charged him with a misdemeanor count of abuse of a corpse, Singer was arraigned Wednesday by District Judge Kelley Gillette-Walker. He was released pending his appearance at future court appearances. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for May 7.
This story was originally published March 27, 2025 at 2:42 PM.