A Fentress County grand jury indicted Chadrick "Chad" Mundy, the 37-year-old owner of Mundy Funeral Home in Jamestown, on 52 counts Wednesday, charging him with filing fraudulent burial-insurance claims, stealing from clients and financially exploiting elderly and vulnerable adults. Mundy was arrested Wednesday afternoon and booked into the Fentress County Jail on an $80,000 bond, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation announced.
The indictment lists 12 counts of violating the Fraudulent Insurance Act, 15 counts of theft of property over $2,500, five counts of theft of property over $1,000, four counts of theft of property under $1,000, nine counts of financial exploitation of an elderly or vulnerable adult, four counts of abuse of a corpse, two counts of criminal simulation and one count of worthless checks.
TBI's release notes the charges are "merely accusations of criminal conduct, not evidence" and that Mundy is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
The investigation predates the suspensions
TBI special agents began investigating Mundy Funeral Home in May at the request of Eighth Judicial District Attorney General Jared Effler, the agency said. Agents gathered evidence that Mundy filed numerous fraudulent insurance claims related to burial policies, exploited elderly and vulnerable clients for personal gain and mishandled cremated remains.
That timeline puts the criminal investigation roughly three months ahead of the regulatory action. The Tennessee Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers summarily suspended the licenses of both Mundy and the funeral home on August 11, after a July 22 audit of preneed records found case files with no death certificates, no payment records or no documentation at all. The state's August disciplinary action report separately lists the summary suspension of the funeral home's preneed seller registration on August 13.
The August board hearing laid out what the insurance claims involved. Homesteaders Life Company, the insurer backing the preneed policies, produced payment documents showing at least five policies with confirmed proof the claimed person was still alive. One claim was filed for Mundy's own wife, whom Homesteaders confirmed is alive. Investigators believe roughly a dozen or more fraudulent death claims were filed, exceeding $80,000 in total, including approximately $17,840 tied to individuals in a guardianship program. WKRN reported that TBI again confirmed the claim on Mundy's living wife in announcing the indictment.
By the Numbers
The exploitation counts
Nine counts of financial exploitation of an elderly or vulnerable adult make this more than an insurance fraud case. The August board records connected at least some of the preneed money to a guardianship program, in which a court-appointed guardian manages a person's affairs, including the funeral bill. Obitley reported in August that the Mundy case was one of two 2026 criminal cases in which prepaid funeral money came out of guardianship programs, alongside the Michigan case of Terry Alvin Kaufman, who owes $1.1 million in restitution to 204 victims.
The indictment does not name the alleged victims, and the docket number was not yet public as of Thursday night. The case will proceed in Fentress County court.
The cremation cases
The four abuse-of-a-corpse counts and two criminal-simulation counts bring the criminal case alongside reporting that began in June. WATE reported on June 26 that Amy Stockton's family received someone else's cremated remains after a January 10 funeral service for her mother-in-law, Janie Stockton, and that the urn and keepsake pendants the family received did not contain her ashes. The crematorium told the family's lawyer that her ashes went uncollected by Mundy Funeral Home for more than 50 days after cremation. The family had asked for donations to the funeral home in lieu of flowers, and later learned it did not receive all of the donated funds. A refund check the family received bounced.
Mundy apologized in a WATE interview at the time. "If there was a way to take that hurt and anguish away that my mistake has caused, I would do that," he said.
TBI said agents gathered evidence that Mundy mishandled cremated remains. The indictment does not specify which cases the abuse-of-a-corpse counts refer to.
What happens next
No arraignment date has been announced. The Fentress County Circuit Court clerk's office said in August it was waiting on TBI, and no case naming Mundy appeared in the state's online court index at that time.
On the regulatory side, the August suspensions remain in effect. Mundy's funeral director license shows a suspended status on the state's license verification portal. During the August hearing, the board's legal representative said Mundy had told him there is "a significant interest in surrendering his funeral director's license, the funeral home's license, and the pre-need seller's license." The board could make the suspensions permanent once the complaints are resolved. The board met September 8; the minutes had not been posted as of Thursday night.
State officials said during the August meeting that several civil lawsuits are likely to be filed against the funeral home. None had been filed as of Thursday night.
What This Means for You
*Sources: TBI news release (Sept. 23, 2026), WKRN (Sept. 24, 2026), WVLT (Sept. 23, 2026), WATE (Aug. 12, 2026), WVLT (Aug. 13, 2026), WATE (June 26, 2026), Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance August 2026 disciplinary action report, Tennessee Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers. Prior Obitley coverage: "Tennessee Suspends Mundy Funeral Home Over Death Claims on the Living and Guardianship Money" (Aug. 26, 2026), "Two Funeral Fraud Cases Targeted Guardianship Programs and the People in Them" (Aug. 27, 2026).*
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