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A Widow Said Her Husband Was Left in a Drinks Cooler After Dying on a Cruise

Marilyn Jones accused Celebrity Cruises in a lawsuit of storing her husband’s body in a cooler rather than the ship’s morgue and allowing it to become “horrifically decomposed.”

By Lauren McCarthy

Last August, Marilyn Jones and her husband, Robert, set out from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on an eight-day Caribbean cruise aboard the Celebrity Equinox.

The couple, of Bonifay, Fla., were just two days into the trip when Robert Jones, 79, died of a heart attack.

Celebrity Cruises presented Ms. Jones with two options, according to a federal lawsuit that she filed against the cruise line this week: disembark with her husband’s body in San Juan, P.R., or agree to have it stored in the ship’s morgue until it returned to Florida six days later.

She opted to remain with the ship. But when a funeral home worker and a Broward County sheriff’s deputy came aboard in Fort Lauderdale to retrieve Mr. Jones’s body, they discovered that it had been moved from the morgue to a cooler on a different floor, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Having been stored at an insufficient temperature, the body had “horrifically decomposed,” the lawsuit said, preventing his family from having an open casket at his wake and funeral.

For her trauma, Ms. Jones, who had been married to her husband for 55 years, and her family are seeking a jury trial and at least $1 million in damages.

In a statement, Celebrity Cruises declined to comment, citing “the sensitivity of the alleged facts and out of respect for the family.”

The lawsuit, which was reported by Miami New Times , said members of the ship’s crew told Ms. Jones that there was a “50/50 shot” if she got off the ship in San Juan that the coroner’s office there would take possession of her husband’s body for an autopsy before releasing it to a funeral home. She was told she would have to stay in Puerto Rico with his body and make arrangements on her own to get it, and herself, back to Florida.

Assured that the Equinox was equipped to safely transport her husband’s body back to Fort Lauderdale, Ms. Jones, who was 78 at the time and suddenly traveling alone, gave the crew permission to store his body in the ship’s morgue and agreed to remain on board for the rest of the cruise, the lawsuit says.

“She was given a very difficult choice,” Thomas Carey, a lawyer representing Ms. Jones, her two daughters and three grandchildren, who are also plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said in an interview on Friday. “She logically selected the ship’s morgue,” he said, after she was assured it had a working facility.

“At some unknown point,” he said, “somebody discovered that the refrigeration was not working.”

When the funeral home worker and the sheriff’s deputy found that Mr. Jones’s body was not in the morgue but had been moved to a beverage cooler, the lawsuit said, it was “immediately clear” that it was in the advanced stages of decomposition, the lawsuit said. The body, it said, had expanded with gas and “his skin had turned green.”

The cooler was intended for things like soda, Mr. Carey said, and was not nearly cold enough to store a human body.

Like all cruise ships, the Celebrity Equinox, which is registered in Malta and can carry up to 2,852 people, is required to have a morgue because onboard deaths are not uncommon, said Hendrik Keijer, a marine operations expert who served for 10 years as a captain on Holland America Line cruise ships.

“For some people it is their last vacation, unfortunately,” Mr. Keijer said. “That’s why morgues are onboard.”

Jacob Munch, a maritime lawyer who is also representing Ms. Jones in her lawsuit, said cruise lines have an obligation to maintain the morgues.

“It’s incumbent on them to make sure they’re working properly,” he said in an interview, “especially in sensitive situations like this. She’s turning to them for advice.”

If Ms. Jones had known the ship did not have a working morgue, the lawsuit said, she would have chosen to take her husband’s body off the ship in Puerto Rico. Celebrity Cruises’ handling of the matter had been “reckless and careless,” it said.

Ms. Jones and her family are “devastated” and will struggle to heal, Mr. Carey said.

“For the rest of her life,” he said, “she’s going to have to think about this.”

Lauren McCarthy , a planning editor for live coverage at The Times, is on temporary assignment as a breaking-news reporter. More about Lauren McCarthy

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Cruise line let passenger’s body decompose, lawsuit says

FILE - The cruiser Celebrity Equinox built by the shipyard Meyer in Papenburg, Germany, goes down the river Ems near Gandersum on Saturday, June 20, 2009. A widow and her family are suing Celebrity Cruises for allegedly mishandling her husband’s body after he died while they were on the Celebrity Equinox in August 2022, saying it was left to decompose and they suffered extreme emotional trauma. (AP Photo/Joerg Sarbach, File)

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A widow and her family are suing Celebrity Cruises for allegedly mishandling her husband’s body after he died while they were on a ship last year, saying it was left to decompose and they suffered extreme emotional trauma.

After Marilyn Jones’ husband of 55 years, Robert Jones, died of a heart attack Aug. 15 onboard the Celebrity Equinox, his body was stored for nearly a week inside a walk-in cooler normally used for beverages instead of a properly chilled morgue as she was promised, according to the federal lawsuit filed in Florida.

That left the body bloated and green, and the family was unable to have an open-coffin funeral “which was a long standing family custom and was what his family had desired,” the lawsuit says. Marilyn Jones, her two daughters and three grandchildren are seeking $1 million in damages.

Celebrity Cruises declined to comment, citing the case’s sensitivity and “out of respect for the family.” The Celebrity Equinox, which cruises the Caribbean year-round out of Fort Lauderdale, is flagged out of Malta and can carry almost 3,000 passengers and 1,200 crew members.

According to the lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in Fort Lauderdale, after Robert Jones died, his widow was given two choices by crew members.

They allegedly told Marilyn Jones, then 78 and from the Florida Panhandle, that his body could be taken off at the next stop, Puerto Rico, or stored in the morgue until the ship got back to Fort Lauderdale in six days. Because passenger deaths sometimes happen, most large cruise ships have a morgue.

The crew told her that if she chose Puerto Rico, she would need to go with the body and then arrange transportation for it and herself back to Florida, the suit says. She was also told that island authorities would perhaps require an autopsy, which could further delay their return.

Because Jones was alone, she picked the morgue. But that’s not where the body was stored, the lawsuit says.

When the ship arrived in Florida, a funeral home employee and a Broward County sheriff’s deputy found the morgue apparently out of service. They found the body in a walk-in drink cooler in a bag on a palette, according to the suit.

It says the cooler was significantly warmer than the near-freezing temperatures needed to properly store a body, and Robert Jones’ remains were in “advanced stages of decomposition.”

Celebrity’s actions caused the family “extreme trauma by visualizing Mr. Jones’s body horrifically decomposed, and knowing their husband and father was callously and casually left in a beverage cooler, stripping him of his dignity,” the suit reads.

Jones’ attorneys are seeking a jury trial.

Celebrity Cruises kept a passenger's dead body in a drinks cooler for 6 days and let it rot, lawsuit alleges

• The wife and family of a man who died of a heart attack on a cruise ship is suing Celebrity Cruises.
• They allege that Robert Jones' corpse was stored in the ship's walk-in drinks cooler for six days.
• Cruise ships are required to have working morgues, but the family say Celebrity Equinox's was broken.

An elderly man's corpse was left to rot for six days in a drinks cooler onboard a cruise ship after he died on board, according to a civil lawsuit against Celebrity Cruises.

In a complaint filed in Florida federal court on Wednesday, the family of the Robert Jones, who was 78, accuses the cruise line of improperly storing his body after death, resulting in its decomposition.

The Miami New Times was the first publication to report on the lawsuit.

The lawsuit accuses Celebrity of concealing the fact that it didn't have a working morgue on board, and discouraging Jones's wife from taking her husband's body to be processed in Puerto Rico.

The body was found by a funeral worker lying in a bag on the cooler floor, the complaint said.

The plaintiffs — his wife, daughters, and grandchildren — are seeking $1 million in compensatory damages.

The lawsuit said that Jones died of a heart attack on board the Celebrity Equinox in the summer of 2022.

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His wife, Marilyn Jones, was given two options for what to do with her late husband's body, per the complaint.

She could have his body removed from the ship in San Juan, Puerto Rico, or leave it on board until the ship reached Fort Lauderdale, Florida, six days later.

According to the lawsuit, the ship's personnel gave Jones a list of reasons not to take the Puerto Rico option.

They said that it would require her to stay in San Juan and arrange the transport of herself and the body to the mainland US herself, per the complaint.

It also alleged that Jones was told Puerto Rican authorities might insist on an autopsy, delaying the return of the body.

The other option was to keep the body in the morgue, which is what Jones chose. Cruise ships are legally required to have morgues because deaths onboard are so common. They can store bodies for weeks without decomposition.

However, per the complaint, the morgue was out of action, and Jones's body was instead put in a drinks cooler that wasn't cold enough to refrigerate a body.

The complaint said that a funeral-home worker and a sheriff's deputy from Broward County went to collect the corpse and found it improperly stored.

"The cooler in which Mr. Jones' body was found by the funeral employee had drinks placed outside of the cooler and was not at a temperature which was sufficient nor proper for storing a dead body to prevent decomposition," the complaint said.

The body was not located on a bed or a medical table and was lying in a bag on a palette on the cooler's floor, the complaint said.

The lawsuit claims that the poor storage meant the body could not be made presentable for an open-casket wake and funeral, depriving the family of the funeral they wanted.

The lawsuit accuses Celebrity Cruises of acting "recklessly, willfully, and wantonly, and without care for the Jones family's loved one" by failing to ensure that the morgue was working and the remains were stored carefully.

Celebrity Cruises did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

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Cruise ship staff allowed Florida man’s body to badly decompose after heart attack, lawsuit says

A Florida woman alleges in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday that her husband died aboard a cruise ship in the Caribbean and the luxury liner’s staff failed to properly preserve the body, robbing his loved ones of an open-casket funeral.

Marilyn Jones, 78, set sail Aug. 13 aboard the Celebrity Equinox in Fort Lauderdale with her husband of 55 years, Robert Jones, 79, according to the suit filed in the U.S. District Court of Southern Florida. The ocean liner was scheduled for an eight-day excursion to ports in the East Caribbean, including San Juan, Puerto Rico, the suit said.

Marilyn Jones was listed as a plaintiff, as were her two daughters, an adult granddaughter and two minor grandchildren. The defendant in the lawsuit is Celebrity Cruises Inc., which owns and operates the Celebrity Equinox.

A representative with Celebrity Cruises said Friday in an email: “Due to the sensitivity of the alleged facts and out of respect for the family, we decline to comment on the matter.”

After two days on the cruise, the vacation turned somber when Robert Jones died from a heart attack, the suit said.

Following her husband’s death, the lawsuit said, Marilyn Jones was told she had the option of preserving her husband’s body in the cruise ship’s morgue for the next six days until the boat docked in Fort Lauderdale. The suit also alleges that Jones was dissuaded from taking her husband’s body off the cruise ship in San Juan when she was cautioned the coroner’s office there could take possession of the body and perform an autopsy before releasing it to a funeral home.

The ship’s staff also cautioned her that if she stayed in Puerto Rico, she would be responsible for securing travel back home for her and her late husband, the suit said.

The staff’s warnings about leaving the ship with her husband’s body in Puerto Rico didn’t leave her much choice, the suit alleges.

She was told there would be a “50/50 chance that a medical examiner in San Juan would ‘take possession’ of her husband’s body and perform an autopsy. This was especially distressing to Ms. Jones, who is elderly and was traveling alone with her husband,” the suit said.

When the Equinox docked in Florida after nearly a week since her husband’s passing, a worker with a funeral home and a deputy with a local sheriff’s office arrived to handle the body, the suit said.

But Robert Jones’ body was not in the ship’s morgue, instead, it was moved to a cooler on a different floor. The cooler, the suit said, was not cold enough to preserve the body which was in a state of severe decomposition, the suit said.

In the cooler, Jones’ body was not on a bed or medical table, instead it “was laying in a bag on a palette on the floor,” the suit said.

The unsuitable conditions in the cooler caused physical indignities to Jones’ body, the suit said.

“By allowing Mr. Jones’ body to decompose while on the ship to such a state that his family was unable to have open casket funeral and wake services, denying his wife of 55 years, children, grandchildren, friends, and community the closure their family and community deserved, a practice which was a part of his family’s culture,” the suit said.

The ship should have been equipped to handle a death, the suit said, citing heart attacks and cardiac incidents as the “leading cause of death among passengers on its ships, having had at least 37 deaths on board its’ own cruise ships since 2001,” according to the lawsuit.

The suit alleges the cruise should have kept a working morgue, inspected it to make sure it was working or checked Jones’ body with reasonable frequency to make sure it was properly preserved.

The Jones' family seeks a jury trial and damages of at least $1 million, the suit said.

Antonio Planas is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital. 

Watch CBS News

Celebrity Cruises improperly stored dead body in cruise ship's cooler, instead of morgue, lawsuit claims

April 23, 2023 / 8:44 AM EDT / CNN

FORT LAUDERDALE -- A Florida woman and her family have filed a lawsuit against Celebrity Cruises, claiming the cruise line improperly stored her husband's body in the ship's cooler, as opposed to the morgue, after he died on board.

The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Wednesday.

According to the complaint, Robert L. Jones, died due to a cardiac event while on the Celebrity Equinox cruise ship in August 2022, traveling from Fort Lauderdale to ports in the Eastern Caribbean.

The lawsuit states that after Jones' death, his wife, Marilyn Jones, was told that she had two options for what could be done with her husband's body. According to the lawsuit, those options were to "either have Mr. Jones' body removed from the ship in San Juan," Puerto Rico or to "have his body stored on the ship until it reached port in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, approximately six days from the date of his passing."

Jones' body stayed on board the ship for "approximately six days," according to the lawsuit.

"When the funeral services employee in Ft. Lauderdale was brought onto the ship to retrieve Mr. Jones' body, his body was not located in the ship's morgue," the lawsuit said.

"Instead, Mr. Jones' body had, at some time not yet known, had been moved from the ship's morgue to a cooler on a different floor than the ship's morgue. The cooler in which Mr. Jones' body was found by the funeral employee had drinks placed outside of the cooler, and was not at a temperature which was sufficient nor proper for storing a dead body to prevent decomposition," according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit also says the body was found "in a bag on a palette on the floor of the cooler" and that it "was in advanced stages of decomposition."

Marilyn Jones and her family are asking for compensatory damages in the amount of $1 million and are demanding a trial by jury.

CNN has reached out to Celebrity Cruises for comment.

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Celebrity Cruises Accused in Lawsuit of Improperly Storing Body in Ship's Cooler, Not Morgue

The late man's family seeks damages of at least $1 million, according to the suit

Ryan Parker is the former Senior News Editor, Weekends for PEOPLE. He left PEOPLE in 2023.

Celebrity Cruises is facing a lawsuit in which a Florida woman and her family accuse the cruise line of improperly storing her husband's body in the ship's cooler, not the morgue.

In the lawsuit, cited by both CNN and NBC News , the widow of Robert L. Jones accuses the company of improperly storing the late Jones, thereby "allowing Mr. Jones' body to decompose while on the ship to such a state that his family was unable to have [an] open casket funeral." The Jones family seeks damages of at least $1 million, according to the suit as cited by the news outlet.

Jones died of a cardiac medical emergency while on the Celebrity Equinox cruise ship in August 2022, which was traveling from Fort Lauderdale ports in the Eastern Caribbean.

According to the lawsuit, as cited by CNN, after Jones' death, his wife, Marilyn, was informed there were two options: have the body removed from the ship in San Juan, Puerto Rico or have the body stored on the ship until it reached port in Ft. Lauderdale in six days.

The decision was made to store the body.

However, "When the funeral services employee in Ft. Lauderdale was brought onto the ship to retrieve Mr. Jones' body, his body was not located in the ship's morgue," the lawsuit alleges, according to CNN. "Instead, Mr. Jones' body had, at some time not yet known, had been moved from the ship's morgue to a cooler on a different floor than the ship's morgue. The cooler in which Mr. Jones' body was found by the funeral employee had drinks placed outside of the cooler, and was not at a temperature which was sufficient nor proper for storing a dead body to prevent decomposition."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Celebrity Cruises did not immediately return PEOPLE's request for comment. A representative with Celebrity Cruises on Friday said in an email to NBC News : "Due to the sensitivity of the alleged facts and out of respect for the family, we decline to comment on the matter."

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Grandfather left to rot in cooler for days after heart attack on cruise ship, lawsuit alleges

Marilyn jones and family seeking $1m over treatment of husband robert’s body after death on celebrity equinox, article bookmarked.

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The body of a Florida grandfather was left to decompose on a cruise ship after he died of a heart attack onboard, according to a lawsuit.

Marilyn Jones, 78, set sail last August onboard the Celebrity Equinox from Fort Lauderdale with her husband of 55 years, Robert Jones, 79, according to the suit filed in the US District Court of Southern Florida.

Mr Jones died a couple of days into the cruise and his body was stored for nearly a week inside a walk-in beverage cooler rather than the morgue, the lawsuit states according to the Associated Press .

Court papers state that at the end of the cruise, the body was bloated and green and the family was unable to hold an open-coffin funeral, “which was a long-standing family custom and was what his family had desired.”

Marilyn Jones, her two daughters and three grandchildren are seeking $1m in damages and say they suffered extreme emotional trauma.

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The lawsuit alleges that the crew onboard the ship told Ms Jones that following the death of her husband his body could be taken off in Puerto Rico or kept in the morgue until they returned to Fort Lauderdale.

Because she was travelling alone she chose the ship’s morgue, which is not where the body ended up being stored, according to the claim.

Actions by the Celebrity crew caused the family “extreme trauma by visualizing Mr Jones’s body horrifically decomposed, and knowing their husband and father was callously and casually left in a beverage cooler, stripping him of his dignity,” the suit states.

Celebrity Cruises told NBC News they would not comment on the case “out of respect for the family.”

Attorneys for Ms Jones and her family are seeking a jury trial.

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Celebrity Cruises kept a passenger's dead body in a drinks cooler for 6 days and let it rot, lawsuit alleges

The wife and family of a man who died of a heart attack on a cruise ship is suing Celebrity Cruises.

They allege that Robert Jones' corpse was stored in the ship's walk-in drinks cooler for six days.

Cruise ships are required to have working morgues, but the family say Celebrity Equinox's was broken.

An elderly man's corpse was left to rot for six days in a drinks cooler onboard a cruise ship after he died on board, according to a civil lawsuit against Celebrity Cruises.

In a complaint filed in Florida federal court on Wednesday, the family of the Robert Jones, who was 78, accuses the cruise line of improperly storing his body after death, resulting in its decomposition.

The Miami New Times was the first publication to report on the lawsuit.

The lawsuit accuses Celebrity of concealing the fact that it didn't have a working morgue on board, and discouraging Jones's wife from taking her husband's body to be processed in Puerto Rico.

The body was found by a funeral worker lying in a bag on the cooler floor, the complaint said.

The plaintiffs — his wife, daughters, and grandchildren — are seeking $1 million in compensatory damages.

The lawsuit said that Jones died of a heart attack on board the Celebrity Equinox in the summer of 2022.

His wife, Marilyn Jones, was given two options for what to do with her late husband's body, per the complaint.

She could have his body removed from the ship in San Juan, Puerto Rico, or leave it on board until the ship reached Fort Lauderdale, Florida, six days later.

According to the lawsuit, the ship's personnel gave Jones a list of reasons not to take the Puerto Rico option.

They said that it would require her to stay in San Juan and arrange the transport of herself and the body to the mainland US herself, per the complaint.

It also alleged that Jones was told Puerto Rican authorities might insist on an autopsy, delaying the return of the body.

The other option was to keep the body in the morgue, which is what Jones chose. Cruise ships are legally required to have morgues because deaths onboard are so common. They can store bodies for weeks without decomposition.

However, per the complaint, the morgue was out of action, and Jones's body was instead put in a drinks cooler that wasn't cold enough to refrigerate a body.

The complaint said that a funeral-home worker and a sheriff's deputy from Broward County went to collect the corpse and found it improperly stored.

"The cooler in which Mr. Jones' body was found by the funeral employee had drinks placed outside of the cooler and was not at a temperature which was sufficient nor proper for storing a dead body to prevent decomposition," the complaint said.

The body was not located on a bed or a medical table and was lying in a bag on a palette on the cooler's floor, the complaint said.

The lawsuit claims that the poor storage meant the body could not be made presentable for an open-casket wake and funeral, depriving the family of the funeral they wanted.

The lawsuit accuses Celebrity Cruises of acting "recklessly, willfully, and wantonly, and without care for the Jones family's loved one" by failing to ensure that the morgue was working and the remains were stored carefully.

Celebrity Cruises did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Read the original article on Insider

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Widow sues US cruise line after husband’s body stored in drinks cooler

Ship lacked required onboard morgue and Robert Jones’s body had turned green and was decomposing by time it reached Florida

A cruise line stored the body of a passenger who died onboard in a drinks cooler for several days, causing the man’s body to turn green and decompose, the man’s widow alleged in a federal lawsuit filed in Florida last week .

The man, Robert Jones, died of a heart attack on 15 August last year while onboard the Celebrity Equinox during a Caribbean cruise. Ship crew members allegedly told his widow, Marilyn Jones, that she could either take the body on shore in San Juan, Puerto Rico, or that they could store it in the working onboard morgue until they returned to Florida . Staffers told her that the body had only a 50% chance of undergoing an autopsy in San Juan and that she would have to remain there alone until the body was autopsied and embalmed, Jones said in the complaint. She chose to keep the body on the ship.

But when the vessel returned to Fort Lauderdale on 21 August, a sheriff’s office deputy and funeral home employee found that Robert Jones’s body had been placed in a bag on a pallet on the floor of a drinks cooler, according to the lawsuit. The room was not cold enough to prevent the body from decomposing, and funeral staff were reportedly not able to salvage the body enough for an open casket funeral. The ship’s required working morgue was not functioning at the time, the lawsuit says.

Marilyn Jones, her daughters, and three grandchildren are suing Celebrity Cruises for $1m in damages.

Celebrity Cruises declined to comment on the case, citing “the sensitivity of the alleged facts and out of respect for the family”.

“The actions and omissions of Celebrity and its crew have tortiously interfered with the body of Robert Jones and with plaintiffs’ last memories of Jones, which has caused extreme trauma by visualizing Mr Jones’s body horrifically decomposed, and knowing their husband and father was callously and casually left in a beverage cooler, stripping him of his dignity in the sacred time just after his passing,” the suit says.

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Man's body stored in drink cooler after he dies on Celebrity Cruise: lawsuit

Robert jones' widow and family suing for $1m in damages stemming from poor storage of his remains.

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Celebrity Cruises is facing a lawsuit for allegedly mishandling the body of a deceased passenger by allowing it to decompose in a drink cooler aboard the ship last year.

Robert Jones, 78, died of a heart attack in August 2022 aboard the Celebrity Equinox as it sailed the Caribbean, and the cruise line contacted his widow, Marilyn Jones, with a choice, according to the suit

She could pick up the body at the ship’s next port stop in Puerto Rico or have it stored in the ship’s morgue until the cruise ship returned to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, six days later.

Jones chose to have her late husband’s body stored in the ship’s morgue, but when the ship arrived, a funeral home employee and sheriff’s deputy found the morgue apparently out of service and the bagged body stored in a walk-in drink cooler on a pallet, the suit claimed. 

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The cruise ship Celebrity Equinox (Chris Ison / PA Images via Getty Images / File / Getty Images)

The lawsuit states that the walk-in cooler was significantly warmer than the near-freezing temperatures required to store a body and prevent decomposition. Robert Jones’ remains were found to be in the "advanced stages of decomposition," having turned bloated and green.

As a result, the family suffered "extreme trauma by visualizing Mr. Jones’s body horrifically decomposed, and knowing their husband and father was callously and casually left in a beverage cooler, stripping him of his dignity," the suit said.

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The Celebrity Equinox cruise ship is docked at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on June 26, 2021. (Eva Marie Uzcategui / Bloomberg via Getty Images / File / Getty Images)

The family’s suit says that because of the body’s decomposition status, they were unable to hold an open-coffin funeral for Robert, which was "a long-standing family custom and what his family had desired."

Marilyn Jones, her two daughters and three grandchildren are seeking $1 million in damages from Celebrity Cruises. They filed their lawsuit against the cruise line in a federal district court in Fort Lauderdale.

The Celebrity Equinox cruises the Caribbean year-round and is based out of Fort Lauderdale. The Malta-flagged vessel can carry nearly 3,000 passengers and 1,200 crew members.

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The Celebrity Equinox (Joker / Helmut Metzmacher / ullstein bild via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Celebrity Cruises, which is a subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Group, told FOX Business in a statement that, "Due to the sensitivity of the alleged facts and out of respect for the family, we decline to comment on the matter."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Cruise line let passenger’s body decompose,…

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Cruise line let passenger’s body decompose, lawsuit says.

After Marilyn Jones’ husband of 55 years, Robert Jones, died of a heart attack Aug. 15 onboard the Celebrity Equinox, his body was stored for nearly a week inside a walk-in cooler normally used for beverages instead of a properly chilled morgue as she was promised, according to the federal lawsuit filed in Florida.

That left the body bloated and green, and the family was unable to have an open-coffin funeral “which was a long standing family custom and was what his family had desired,” the lawsuit says. Marilyn Jones, her two daughters and three grandchildren are seeking $1 million in damages.

Celebrity Cruises declined to comment, citing the case’s sensitivity and “out of respect for the family.” The Celebrity Equinox, which cruises the Caribbean year-round out of Fort Lauderdale, is flagged out of Malta and can carry almost 3,000 passengers and 1,200 crew members.

According to the lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in Fort Lauderdale, after Robert Jones died, his widow was given two choices by crew members.

They allegedly told Marilyn Jones, then 78 and from the Florida Panhandle, that his body could be taken off at the next stop, Puerto Rico, or stored in the morgue until the ship got back to Fort Lauderdale in six days. Because passenger deaths sometimes happen, most large cruise ships have a morgue.

The crew told her that if she chose Puerto Rico, she would need to go with the body and then arrange transportation for it and herself back to Florida, the suit says. She was also told that island authorities would perhaps require an autopsy, which could further delay their return.

Because Jones was alone, she picked the morgue. But that’s not where the body was stored, the lawsuit says.

When the ship arrived in Florida, a funeral home employee and a Broward County sheriff’s deputy found the morgue apparently out of service. They found the body in a walk-in drink cooler in a bag on a palette, according to the suit.

It says the cooler was significantly warmer than the near-freezing temperatures needed to properly store a body, and Robert Jones’ remains were in “advanced stages of decomposition.”

Celebrity’s actions caused the family “extreme trauma by visualizing Mr. Jones’s body horrifically decomposed, and knowing their husband and father was callously and casually left in a beverage cooler, stripping him of his dignity,” the suit reads.

Jones’ attorneys are seeking a jury trial.

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Cruise line let passenger’s body decompose, lawsuit says

By Associated Press

April 23, 2023

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The cruiser Celebrity Equinox built by the shipyard Meyer in Papenburg, Germany, goes down the river Ems near Gandersum. A widow and her family are suing Celebrity Cruises for allegedly mishandling her husband’s body after he died while they were on the Celebrity Equinox in August 2022, saying it was left to decompose and they suffered extreme emotional trauma.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. >> A widow and her family are suing Celebrity Cruises for allegedly mishandling her husband’s body after he died while they were on a ship last year, saying it was left to decompose and they suffered extreme emotional trauma.

After Marilyn Jones’ husband of 55 years, Robert Jones, died of a heart attack Aug. 15 onboard the Celebrity Equinox, his body was stored for nearly a week inside a walk-in cooler normally used for beverages instead of a properly chilled morgue as she was promised, according to the federal lawsuit filed in Florida.

That left the body bloated and green, and the family was unable to have an open-coffin funeral “which was a long standing family custom and was what his family had desired,” the lawsuit says. Marilyn Jones, her two daughters and three grandchildren are seeking $1 million in damages.

Celebrity Cruises declined to comment, citing the case’s sensitivity and “out of respect for the family.” The Celebrity Equinox, which cruises the Caribbean year-round out of Fort Lauderdale, is flagged out of Malta and can carry almost 3,000 passengers and 1,200 crew members.

According to the lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in Fort Lauderdale, after Robert Jones died, his widow was given two choices by crew members.

They allegedly told Marilyn Jones, then 78 and from the Florida Panhandle, that his body could be taken off at the next stop, Puerto Rico, or stored in the morgue until the ship got back to Fort Lauderdale in six days. Because passenger deaths sometimes happen, most large cruise ships have a morgue.

The crew told her that if she chose Puerto Rico, she would need to go with the body and then arrange transportation for it and herself back to Florida, the suit says. She was also told that island authorities would perhaps require an autopsy, which could further delay their return.

Because Jones was alone, she picked the morgue. But that’s not where the body was stored, the lawsuit says.

When the ship arrived in Florida, a funeral home employee and a Broward County sheriff’s deputy found the morgue apparently out of service. They found the body in a walk-in drink cooler in a bag on a palette, according to the suit.

It says the cooler was significantly warmer than the near-freezing temperatures needed to properly store a body, and Robert Jones’ remains were in “advanced stages of decomposition.”

Celebrity’s actions caused the family “extreme trauma by visualizing Mr. Jones’s body horrifically decomposed, and knowing their husband and father was callously and casually left in a beverage cooler, stripping him of his dignity,” the suit reads.

Jones’ attorneys are seeking a jury trial.

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1 person dies aboard Celebrity Cruises ship, 2 others evacuated from Royal Caribbean ship for medical reasons

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A person aboard the Celebrity Infinity cruise liner has passed away, Celebrity Cruises confirmed on Thursday.

The person’s cause of death was not specified in a statement provided to Fox News, although the ship, which is currently docked off the west coast of Florida, has been under lockdown since at least Saturday following confirmed cases of coronavirus among the remaining crew members onboard, the Miami Herald reports.

Royal Caribbean, which owns Celebrity Cruises, confirmed the death of a person aboard the Celebrity Infinity. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The deceased is also said to be a crew member, according to the outlet.

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A representative for Royal Caribbean, the parent company of Celebrity Cruises, further confirmed that two crew members aboard Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas ship — which currently sits off the coast of southeast Florida — were evacuated for medical reasons.

The company said all guests had already departed from both ships in the last couple of weeks, according to a previous statement obtained by the Herald. Only crew members remain, and those that had exhibited “influenza-like” symptoms were asked to isolate in their cabins.

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As of Saturday, however, crew members aboard the Infinity told the Herald that most of them had been confined to their rooms since Saturday, and learned of a fellow employee’s death on Thursday, but not how many positive cases had been recorded on the ship.

Prior to Saturday, the crew members were reportedly awaiting arrangements to repatriate to their home countries.

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Cruise ships operated by both the Carnival Corporation and Royal Caribbean, among other lines, have recently been linked to several coronavirus outbreaks since February. Most recently, two ships sailing with the Holland America Line (which is owned by Carnival) arrived off at Port Everglades, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Thursday to begin disembarkation after at least 200 passengers reported influenza-like illness symptoms since March 22.

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In March, both  CDC  and the  U.S. State Department  had since advised that Americans avoid traveling by cruise ship. Cruise companies largely suspended travel on March 13 under guidance from government agencies. Ships that were still at sea attempted to make arrangements to dock, though many were turned away and forced to seek docking elsewhere.

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Cruise line worker arrested at Port Everglades for child sexual abuse material, feds say

Chris Gothner , Digital Journalist

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A Celebrity Cruises crew member appeared in Fort Lauderdale federal court Tuesday after federal agents said they found child sexual abuse material on his phone after he disembarked at Port Everglades the day prior.

According to court documents released Wednesday, agents searched the phone of Dennis Ofrancia De Leon, 44, a Filipino national, after he got off the Celebrity Reflection Monday.

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Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Katherine Leonard wrote in a criminal complaint that a “cursory search” of the device revealed “multiple videos/photographs” depicting child sexual abuse material.

Authorities described videos showing boys and girls being raped or otherwise sexually abused by men or women.

Leonard wrote that De Leon admitted to viewing child sexual abuse material, saying he began receiving it about four years ago through Facebook Messenger and looked at it about “once per month.”

He admitted to viewing content showing victims under the age of 10, the complaint states.

De Leon said he “generally deletes the child pornography he downloads onto his cellphone prior to traveling internationally, but failed to do so on this occasion,” Leonard wrote.

He was taken into custody on federal charges of transportation and possession of child pornography and was being held in the Broward Main Jail on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service as of Wednesday, according to jail records.

Those records state he’s also being held on an immigration hold.

A spokesperson for Celebrity Cruises told Local 10 News that De Leon was fired following his arrest.

Copyright 2024 by WPLG Local10.com - All rights reserved.

About the Author

Chris gothner.

Chris Gothner joined the Local 10 News team in 2022 as a Digital Journalist.

RELATED STORIES

Disney cruise line worker accused of possessing child sexual abuse material, cruise ship dancer accused of distributing child sexual abuse material, man leaving cruise at portmiami caught with child sexual abuse videos, police say.

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