What Will Happen to Daniel Lewis Lee’s Body?
The execution took place. Now what?
The first federal execution since 2003 has taken place on July 13, 2020. The executed, Daniel Lewis Lee, murdered a family of three: William Fredrick Muller, his wife Nancy Ann Muller, and Sarah Elizabeth Powell, their eight-year-old daughter. He was on death row since 1999. His execution will not be the only one that takes place in 2020. Three other inmates have their executions scheduled in 2020. Wesley Ira Purkey raped and murdered a 16-year-old girl and will be executed on July 15. Dustin Lee Honken shot and killed five people and will be executed on July 17. Keith Dwayne Nelson kidnapped, raped, and strangled a 10-year-old girl with a wire. He is will be executed on August 28.
According to a media witness, Lee maintained his innocence moments before his death and was executed with pentobarbital. After confirming that his death has occurred, one must wonder how his body will be handled after the fact. The federal execution of Timothy McVeigh, the man who bombed the Oklahoma City federal building, may offer some clues into the nature of Lee’s final resting place. Although McVeigh was a Bronze Star recipient in the Persian Gulf war, his award did not qualify him for burial in the famous Arlington National Cemetery. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered in an undisclosed location.
Since it is not known whether Lee served in the military or not, the Arlington National Cemetery eligibility rules would not apply to him. Assuming that his body would be treated like any other body, one must consider Lee’s burial wishes, if he had any. If not, then his surviving spouse (if he had one) would have control of the body if they have not waived control of the body. Without a surviving spouse who has not waived control of the body, Lee’s body would go first to any adult children he may have and then to parents, brothers, sisters, or more distant kin.
If there is any dispute regarding custody of Lee’s body, a court may have to resolve the dispute. The responsibility of resolving that dispute will most likely fall on Indiana’s state court since his execution took place in Indiana. Without any kin and without anyone claiming his body within a certain amount of time, the coroner may contract with a funeral director to give Lee a burial funded by the county auditor as per Indiana law. As a federal execution, however, there may be other special protocols in effect.
Now that the execution has taken place, some people may object to the proper disposal of someone who committed such a heinous crime. Others may say that all dead, regardless of criminal history, are entitled to some sort of a respectful disposition of their remains. This ethical issue came into play when the bodies of Osama Bin Laden and Tamerlan Tsarnaev needed to be disposed of. Bin Laden’s body was washed and buried at sea according to Islamic tradition while Tsarnaev’s body was rejected from a number of funeral homes and cemeteries. Those who did offer to care for Tsarnaev’s body faced threats of violence from protesters.
Regardless of how one feels about the nature of the death penalty, most people will agree that the dead need to be treated with respect. Why then are funeral homes hesitant to deal with the bodies of controversial figures? As with Bin Laden’s case, identifiable graves may become shrines to these people and indirectly spur other related crimes. Others may have concerns about facing threats of violence, such as in Tsarnaev’s case. Even so, some funeral homes and cemeteries just did not want these bodies. Thus, Lee’s execution will truly test America’s willingness to bury all with respect.
