A life of abuses, a death ignored

Linda Walton lived as she died - harshly.

The 37-year-old woman, whose body was left decomposing in a hearse for nine days, had been trying to overcome her hardscrabble past.

The Carrboro resident, her friends say, had begun to get beyond her struggles with alcohol abuse, a problem that afflicted Walton with health problems and put emotional and physical distance between her and her family.

But then Walton's body was discovered in a Carrboro apartment Aug. 11, so decomposed that investigators thought she might have been dead for five days.

What happened in the aftermath of that somber discovery, the N.C. Board of Funeral Service decided Wednesday, should be the focus of a quasijudicial hearing.

The board, which regulates the funeral-service and mortuary profession in North Carolina, wants an in-depth explanation from David B. Lawson Mortuary, the undertaker that picked up Walton's body. Police and others had trouble finding Walton's family, but the undertaker from Graham agreed to take the body and hold it while the search for relatives was under way, according to Carrboro police.

Nine days later, Graham police were called to investigate a foul odor in the heart of the business district in the small Alamance County town about 30 miles west of Carrboro. Investigators traced the pungent smell to a hearse owned by the mortuary service David B. Lawson owns.

The gruesome find set off an investigation by police, the Alamance County District Attorney's Office and the N.C. Board of Funeral Service. As those inquiries continue, the few who befriended Walton during her short stay in Carrboro struggle with feelings of guilt, remorse and helplessness.

Teresa Painter was a former activity director at an assisted living center in Carrboro and got to know Walton there.

"She was a very kind,very giving, sweet person," Painter recalled.

Walton liked to dabble in the arts.

"Her imagination with colors was just amazing," Painter said. "She loved to make jewelry, to paint your fingernails and her fingernails."

Painter encouraged Walton to stay at the assisted living center because she thought it would be better for Walton, who needed treatment for kidney disease. But Walton wanted more independence.

"She was headstrong," Painter said. "If she was determined to do something, she did it. She was a survivor, and I think sometimes that survival instinct took place of her better judgment."

When Walton left the center, Painter slipped her phone number into her friend's hand. "Promise me two things," Painter said she told Walton. "Never go hungry and never go cold."

Alton Thompson, who had lived at the same assisted living center, enjoyed sitting, talking and sharing food with Walton.

Both Thompson and Painter are wracked with grief, not only by the loss of their friend but by how her body was treated in the days after her death.

Carrboro police had found a brother in Texas, but he wanted nothing to do with his sister. Walton's mother died in Whistler, Ala., according to investigators, and no other relatives could be found.

Painter wants to claim the remains and celebrate Walton's life. "I would like nothing more than to be able to give her a nice service," Painter said Wednesday.