[Westside]

San Antonio —
Sharlotte and Timothy Mott weren’t in court Tuesday to hear a jury award them $8 million after they found a San Antonio funeral home was negligent in the loss of their daughter’s body before she was to be cremated in 2015.

Timothy Mott was at home, recuperating from a mild heart attack that occurred Friday following a grueling, nearly three-week trial in the civil suit filed against MPII Inc., which does business as Mission Park Funeral Chapels and Cemeteries.

Mark Greenwald, an attorney for the Motts, said after the verdict was read that the case was a hard one for the Mott family to endure, which is why they were only in court the days they testified.

“The Motts are happy that they got a jury verdict, but in the end we failed, as we did not find Julie, and that is all that really matters,” Greenwald said.

The victory was bittersweet, Greenwald said.

“This isn’t about the money,” he said. “It’s not going to return their daughter.”

Julie Mott died Aug. 8, 2015. She was to be cremated after her funeral Aug. 15, 2015, at Mission Park's Northwest Side facility. The next day, employees discovered her body missing from a damaged casket at Mission Park North on Cherry Ridge. The Motts accused the company of hiding the fact that they use third-party contractors that had unlimited access to their facilities and that their security codes and locks were outdated and hadn’t been changed in years.

The company, through its owner, Robert “Dick” Tips, and his wife, company president Kristin Tips, had denied wrongdoing and had accused Bill Wilburn, Mott’s ex-boyfriend, of stealing the body. They also alleged the Motts did not divulge that Wilburn was “obsessed with calling and texting” Julie Mott and that he had motive to steal the body because he did not want her cremated.

But the jury made one thing clear: They did not believe Wilburn — or anyone else — stole her body, an allegation the company made from the start.

The panel was specifically asked, “Did either John Doe or Bill Wilburn unlawfully appropriate the body of Julie Mott with the intent to deprive Tim and Sharlotte Mott of the remains?” They answered “no” beside both.

No arrests have been made in the disappearance, which is still under investigation by San Antonio police.

In addition, the jury awarded Tim and Sharlotte Mott $1.5 million each for mental anguish sustained in the past, and $2.5 million apiece for mental anguish “that, in reasonable probability, will be sustained in the future.”

MPII owns 14 funeral homes and cemeteries in San Antonio that operate under the names of Mission or Mission Park, Alamo, Brookehill, Dellcrest, La Paz All Faiths, Oak Hills and Palm Heights. It also runs San Jose Burial Park and Simplicity Funeral Chapel.

Attorneys for the Motts had asked the jury to award their clients $10 million — $5 million apiece for past and future mental anguish experienced because of the loss of their daughter’s body. Experts testified that financial compensation would not allow either parent to experience closure and would leave them stuck in the grieving process.

The jury received the case just before 12:30 p.m., and it took a little more than three hours to render a verdict.

The Tipses and their attorneys left the courtroom without comment after the verdict was read. It is unclear whether they will appeal the verdict. A call to defense attorney Ricardo Reyna was not immediately answered Tuesday evening.

Jurors in the 131st Civil District Court, presided by Judge Norma Gonzales, heard two weeks and two days of testimony in a case that has garnered national attention. They heard testimony from the Tipses and the Motts, whose relationship at one point was friendly — Timothy Mott worked as a pilot for Dick Tips, and the Tipses allowed the Motts to live in one of their homes where they could keep a horse, a hobby of Julie Mott’s.

The panel also heard allegations of satanism from an employee with Beyer & Beitel Mortuary Services, which embalmed Julie Mott for Mission Park. Nicholas Moreno, who has worked for the company for nearly five years, testified in a video deposition that he did not pick up Mott and never had contact with the body while at the facilities. He acknowledged that he plays in a band called Flesh Hoarder and that satanic or demonic images on his Facebook page and that of the band is “just about the music.”

His boss, Frederick Beyer, testified that Moreno was not involved in the Mott case.

Jurors also were schooled on how an embalming takes place, and last week a casket was rolled into the courtroom so jurors could see how bodies are removed properly — through a trap door that lowers at the foot — and not from the top. Attorneys wanted to show the jury that whoever took the body broke the hinge on the casket because they removed the body from the top.

“MPII lost Julie Mott's body,” plaintiffs’ attorney Alex Katzman told the jury in his closing argument. “The company claims someone came in and stole it. Whether they lost or mishandled it, it really doesn’t matter. They had custody and control, and they lost her body.”

Katzman argued the company had no chain of command records, did not properly train its employees, and, unbeknownst to the Motts, the funeral used Beyer & Beitel Mortuary Services, a third-party contractor, for embalming purposes.

He went on to quote the funeral business’ motto: “‘When you trust your loved ones to us, they never leave our care, custody or control.’ ... They made a promise. This is about what they were required to do,” he said.

Defense attorney Reyna said there indeed was a theft, that the police investigated it that way, and the officer wrote it in his report.

“The greater weight of credible evidence in this case is that for more than 100 years, they’ve taken care of San Antonio families, and there’s never been a body stolen,” Reyna told the jury.

He showed a copy of a contract that the Motts signed when they agreed on services, noting that the documents stated that another company would do the embalming.

“Even Fred Beyer said at one time or another, all funeral homes use them,” Reyna said. “Using B&B didn't cause the remains to be stolen.”

Reyna told the jury should they wish for MPII to award anything, it should be for what a mental health expert said both Motts need — intense therapy for three years each, which Reyna said would amount to $125,000.

In his rebuttal to the defense, plaintiff attorney Ron Salazar asked the jury, “Is $125,000 the value of a destroyed life?”

“Sharlotte won't leave her home. She goes to work, she drives home and holds the sleeve of Julie Mott’s jacket. He (Tim) sits all day, waiting for a red bird,” Salazar said, recalling Timothy Mott's testimony that he had read seeing a cardinal after a loved one has died means they are visiting.

http://www.wcvb.com/article/family-gets-...e/17808580