The Southern Indiana funeral home owner convicted on dozens of theft charges after mishandling corpses faced a judge Friday for final sentencing.
Randy Lankford accepted a plea deal that would keep him out of prison. On Friday, the judge in his case accepted the deal.
Lankford was found last year with 31 decomposing bodies inside his funeral home. He also gave the ashes of several people to the wrong families.
Lankford was sentenced to 12 years; only four of which are to be spent incarcerated. He will serve those four years at home. The rest will be probated.
Lankford said in the past he got overwhelmed with his work and fell behind. That is why dozens of bodies sat rotting inside his business, and it is why the cremated remains of 16 people remained there too.
Lankford apologized to the families in the courtroom Friday.
Several families took the stand to persuade the judge for something harsher, all to no avail.
Lankford will still have to go through a restitution hearing at a later date to determine how much money he owes his more than 40 victims.
He is also still dealing with a separate civil lawsuit.
Source: WAVE
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