Urban explorer makes disturbing discovery inside vacant Ypsilanti funeral home

An urban explorer found what he says appears to be human remains and bodily fluids, along with urns and caskets inside a shuttered funeral home in Ypsilanti.

The O’Neil Swanson Funeral Home has been open to trespass, allowing urban explorers with cameras to access the building, and what they found inside shocked them.

The electricity was still on, so the urban explorers were able to fire up the oven and cremulator, which grinds cremated bones and fragments into ashes. They also found two bags that appeared to be stuffed with ashes, one from 1999 and one from 2012, and according to one of them, the floor seemed to be covered in “ooze from body decomposition.”

“Fluids from the bodies weren’t cleaned off the floor,” one urban explorer, who goes by the moniker Piano Reeves, tells Metro Times. “It was nasty.”

In the room where bodies were stored, he says, were two air conditioners and no refrigerators.

“He made an area that was boarded up like a mini garage with a plastic sheet that didn’t even come down to the floor,” he said.

It’s unclear when O’Neil Swanson II closed the funeral home, which included a crematorium, Tri-County Cremation Services, LLC. In June 2021, state officials issued a cease-and-desist order against Tri-County Cremation Services and its owners, O’Neil Swanson II and Dianne Swanson.

In October 2021, O’Neil Swanson was charged with improper disposal of dead bodies at the funeral home. State regulators ordered the Swansons to stop operating an unregistered crematory, shut down all operations at 1106 E. Michigan Ave. in Ypsilanti, and provide proof that O’Neil Swanson II no longer owns or runs the business.

The investigation began after the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) received an anonymous complaint alleging thick smoke billowed from the crematory chimney, bodies were not properly stored as they awaited cremation, and bodily fluids were leaking onto the floor, according to the agency. State officials cited evidence of improper body storage and leaking bodily fluids in their decision to shut down the facility.

But in November 2021, Washtenaw County District Judge J. Cedric Simpson dismissed the case, saying prosecutors failed to provide evidence to support the charges. In March 2023, Swanson sued LARA and Attorney General Dana Nessel for malicious prosecution, alleging he was charged with a crime he did not commit.

Metro Times couldn’t reach the Swansons for comment. We left messages for his past attorneys.

On Saturday, three days after Metro Times began asking questions, a crew was at the funeral home to secure it, Piano Reeves said.

LARA, which is tasked with holding funeral homes and crematoriums accountable, declined to comment.

This is the second of Swanson’s funeral homes where urban explorers made disturbing discoveries. Swanson Funeral Home in Flint was fined and later lost its license after a LARA investigation found it had been selling prepaid funeral contracts without a proper license. Inspectors said they also found decomposing bodies and unsanitary conditions at the Flint funeral home, which closed in 2017.

In January 2020, an urban explorer told Metro Times he found cremated human remains, bottles of chemicals, and dirty embalming tools at the Swanson Funeral Home in Flint.

About six months later, other urban explorers found the body of a man crushed underneath a hydraulic coffin lift that had fallen through the first floor. Just inches from the body was a cell phone.