Funeral Home Refuses to Give Up Body of Murder Victim

July 9, 1899: The coroner gets enmeshed in a grim dispute over the body of a murder victim. Before C.D. Howry, the coroner's preferred funeral home, could claim the remains of Mrs. Earl Hanchette, Bresee and Shafer, a rival company, took the body after being hired by the victim's closest relative. The coroner demanded that Bresee return the body but the company refused. And Michael McGrath, an East Los Angeles scissors grinder, is killed when his horse runs away and he is thrown from his wagon.