Apr 17, 2015 1 min read

The attorney for Washington County Coroner Tim Warco received a court order to cremate a body at taxpayers’ expense after no one came forward to claim the body.

Fred Schultz died Jan. 16 at his home in the 700 block of Broad Street, Washington. Last month, Warco placed a notice in the Observer-Reporter seeking friends or relatives who wanted to bury Schultz, whose body was kept at the holding facility at the Washington Cemetery crematory.

According to a petition filed with the court by Warco’s solicitor Anthony J. Seneca, no one claimed responsibility for handling the man’s funeral.

Judge Gary Gilman earlier this month ordered that Schultz’s body be cremated.

The coroner did not conduct an autopsy because the cause of Schultz’s death was presumed to be “natural disease.”