Family Won’t Get Murdered Son’s Body Yet Confessed Killer’s Lawyer Wins Request, Putting Off Cremation

The attorney for confessed killer Faron Lovelace got his wish Tuesday: The decomposed body of 24-year-old Jeremy Scott will remain in a freezer in Bonner County for at least five more days.

Judge Debra Heise granted attorney Phil Robinson’s request for a temporary restraining order, preventing Scott’s family in Florida from having the body cremated. Heise will decide Tuesday whether the corpse, which was found in August, can be held for further examination.

“This whole procedure has taken way longer than it should,” said the victim’s father, Homer Scott. He said his son deserves a proper memorial service. “It’s kind of tearing our hearts out.”

Robinson said he understands the family’s position, but needs more time to have the body examined.

“I was flabbergasted that someone would suggest disposal of the remains,” Robinson said. “If it’s cremated, it’s gone. It’s forever destroyed.”

Prosecutor Tevis Hull sides with the family.

“Our position is that the body should be released,” Hull said. “The defense has had ample opportunity to have the remains of Jeremy Scott examined … but hasn’t done it.”

“We’ve turned over everything we’ve received through law enforcement to him.”

Robinson said he may have an independent forensics expert examine the remains. He said the prosecutor’s office has been cooperative about turning over autopsy information, but still is in the process of doing it. If the body is destroyed, Robinson said, the prosecution’s findings cannot be investigated.

Homer Scott said he is tired of the legal hassle. It may be just political posturing, he said: Robinson and Hull both are running for Bonner County prosecutor.

“I can’t imagine them being that slow normally,” Homer Scott said. He said he’s amazed that it takes so long for the two Sandpoint offices to exchange evidence. “The town’s half a mile wide.”

Scott was murdered more than a year ago, killed by an execution-style shot to the back of the head. Lovelace, a convicted bank robber, was arrested Aug. 18. He had escaped from a Wisconsin prison two years earlier.

The self-declared racist confessed to killing Scott and even led police to the shallow grave where they found the body.

Homer Scott flew to Sandpoint Oct. 10, but returned without his son’s remains. “I felt as I left that I had not accomplished my mission,” he said in a telephone interview from Orlando, Fla. “I felt that I had let (Jeremy) down.”

Investigators said Scott shared Lovelace’s white supremacist beliefs and had conspired with him to kill Bonner County officials. The man was shot, investigators said, after he and Lovelace had a falling out.

Because of that, Homer Scott said, his son is not being respected as a victim.

“We’re pretty angry about it…Jeremy might have been to them some bad guy that died, but he’s our child.”

, DataTimes