Dramatic testimony today in the opening of a lawsuit filed against Mission Park Funeral Chapels by the family of Julie Mott, whose body vanished from a north side Mission Park funeral home in August of 2015 in a case which has never been solved, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
The Mott family is suing for 'gross negligence' and demanding 'more than $1 million in damages.
Julie Mott, 25, died of cystic fibrosis in August of 2015. Her body was taken to a Mission Park Funeral Chapel on Cherry Ridge, where it vanished from its coffin on the evening after her funeral.
Lawyers for the Mott family said the negligence of the owners of Mission Park has led to the family's continuing presence in the status of grief which cannot be resolved because of the loss of the body.
Lawyers claim that they have suffered from mental anguish over their daughter's missing body, and their grief because of the body's loss.
But lawyers for Mission Park say the Mott family never told Mission Park officials that an 'obsessed' ex friend of Julie's was angry that she was going to be cremated, and Mission Park didn't know that the man was at Julie's funeral the day before her body vanished.
In fact, he told the jury that when Mission Park CEO Richard Tips told Julie's dad Tim Mott that his daughter's body had been stolen, Mott's first reaction was to tell Tips that this man was responsible.
No charges have ever been filed, and nobody has ever been arrested in the case.
"This guy is obsessive, he has objected to the cremation, and has been physically and verbally abusive,' Mission Park's lawyers told the jury.
Had Tips known about the presence of this man, the jury was told Tips would have hired extra security, but they didn't know about his background or his concerns about the cremation.
"They had never lost a body before."
The trial is expected to last at least two weeks.
PHOTO: MISSION PARK FUNERAL CHAPEL