PITTSBURGH — A former funeral home employee who first exposed allegations about pet remains tells 11 Investigates, human bodies were also mishandled and she wants to know what happened to that part of the case.
“I just want people to know the truth,” Tiffany Mantzouridis tells 11 Investigates. “I want people to know what was really happening.”
Funeral Director, Patrick Vereb, is already accused of taking money from families to cremate their pets, then dumping them in a landfill instead.
That former employee, Tiffany Mantzouridis, tells 11 Investigates she reported all of these allegations to law enforcement at the same time, and we’ve confirmed both cases were forwarded to separate state investigators.
The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office made an arrest in the pet cremation case more than four months ago, but 11 Investigates has spent weeks trying to find out what the Pennsylvania Department of State is doing with the allegations involving human remains.
Tiffany Mantzouridis says she still has nightmares about what she witnessed when she worked for Vereb Funeral Homes in Hazelwood and Natrona Heights.
“There would be bodies that were decomposing in the garage,” Mantzouridis said. “The smell was always bad. If he did try to keep bodies cool in the summer, he would put them in the embalming room and just turn on the window AC unit. There were humans out on cots in the garage with the dead animals.”
Mantzouridis quit and reported her boss, Patrick Vereb, to police.
A second former employee also quit and talked to police. She didn’t want to go on camera, but tells 11 Investigates, she spent hours talking to investigators. Both women say they saw bodies lying on a freight elevator, in the embalming room and in the garage for days.
“They would be marbling and visibly decomposed at times. He was never in a hurry to get them embalmed either,” Mantzouridis added.
11 Investigates confirmed state law requires a body to be embalmed or refrigerated within 24 hours of death.
Mantzouridis says she also has invoices that show Vereb was charging families refrigeration fees for bodies that were going to be cremated - sometimes hundreds of dollars per person.
“He didn’t have refrigeration,” Mantzouridis said. “He would charge people to refrigerate bodies that he wasn’t refrigerating.”
11 Ivestigates tracked down Patrick Vereb, who is already facing charges for mishandling animal remains.
We found him living with a relative and tried to ask him about the allegations involving human bodies. When he came to the door, he denied that he was Patrick Vereb and immediately shut the door. His lawyer would not talk to us either.
Both former employees say they tried to tell a state investigator what they say they saw, but they didn’t have a lot of confidence in him.
“He seemed more irritated that he had to spend time with us,” Mantzouridis added. “Then cut it off.”
Both former employees say there were no follow-ups.
“He kept emphasizing that he was getting ready to retire and that this would be a lot of work,” Mantzouridis said. “It was kind of uncomfortable and discouraging.”
We tracked down that retired investigator by phone. He told us he hired a lawyer but wouldn’t give us his name.
A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of State tells us their policies do not allow them to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation or comment on personnel; but, the agency did say it, “encourages any member of the public who suspects a practitioner is violating professional standards and governing law to file a complaint on the department’s website."
The Department of State says if an investigator believes a crime was committed, they will forward those findings to another agency to review for charges.
Patrick Vereb voluntarily deactivated his license.
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