AUBURN — The former owner of a Lewiston cremation business that was shuttered after mishandling many bodies it stored has been found dead in his home.

Deputy Chief of Police Timothy Cougle said officers found Ken Kincer, 52, deceased in his Granite Street home when they went there for a wellbeing check at his family’s request.

He said the family had been unable to contact him and were worried.

Cougle said Kincer’s death is not considered suspicious.

Kincer’s Affordable Cremation Solution was shut down in 2021 after regulators found unrefrigerated bodies stacked in its basement. Investigators cited a public health violation because they found an odor of decomposition and the unrefrigerated bodies of 11 people in the basement.

In the wake of the highly publicized incident, the Maine Board of Funeral Service agreed to cut a deal with Kincer that would prevent him from holding a funeral license for at least a decade.

Kincer also lost a $5.5 million verdict in a civil court case over his business’s failure to care properly for remains.

At the time of the funeral service deal that gave him a shot at returning to his career one day, Kincer apologized “to all the complainants and their families for any pain and or hardship this situation has caused them.”

He said in a prepared statement that his life had been “a living nightmare” because of depression, alcoholism and a divorce, all of it compounded by the isolation forced by the pandemic.

Kincer’s attorney said he hoped to address the issues that had wrecked his business.

It is unclear how he spent the last couple of years before dying alone in his house.

Copy the Story Link

Comments are not available on this story.

« Previous

Dostie Jewelers leaving Lewiston after 76 years downtown

Next »

Lewiston nonprofit to operate overnight winter shelter for young adults