Authorities identify 3 of 4 bodies found in Riverdale garage with other remains

Authorities have identified three of the four bodies found with other human remains Wednesday in the garage of a south suburban home where the homeowner was conducting an illegal in-home mortuary business, according to police.

Riverdale police called Illinois State Police investigators for assistance at the home in the 13900 block of South Dearborn in Riverdale about 7:30 p.m. after human remains were discovered, according to state police.

Four bodies, one box of cremated remains, and a “bag of organs” were found in the garage, according to Frank Shuftan, spokesman for the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Among the dead were Bridgette Godfrey, who died in February 2013 at the age of 50 of respiratory failure; Ruby Jackson, who died in August 2013 at age 62 of a stroke; and Torrence Henderson, who died in July 2011 at age 38 of a heart condition, according to the medical examiner’s office.

The cremains were identified as those of 44-year-old Andre Mabrey, who died in November 2013, but whose cause of death wasn’t immediately available, according to the medical examiner’s office.

The fourth body remained unidentified as of Friday afternoon, as did the container of organs.

Each of the identified bodies had previously been admitted to the medical examiner’s office and released to licensed funeral directors, authorities said. None of them were the homeowner.

State police said the four bodies were “in various stages of decomposition.”

Investigators believe the homeowner, Anton Godfrey, who died Aug. 29, was “improperly storing bodies in his home garage, which were prepared for burial,” a statement from ISP said. It wasn’t immediately clear if he was related to Bridgette Godfrey.

Anton Godfrey, a reverend, had previously been “the subject of multiple court orders to cease and desist his in-home mortuary practices.”

In August 2013, Godfrey was fined $10,000 by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation for running an “unlicensed practice of funeral directing and embalming,” according to IDFPR records.