BATON ROUGE - Janet Bonnette from Acadia Parish found out several months later that her son Caleb Rowell was not only dead, but cremated without her authorization, KADN initially reported.

Bonnette last heard from Rowell in August of 2023, when she was under the impression he was getting help with his alcoholism. He had been living in Baton Rouge so she would sporadically call police, hospitals, and mental hospitals asking if anyone had seen him. 

In April of this year, she got a different response after making the call to Baton Rouge Police to file a missing person request.

"They switched me and I started telling them who he was and all, I knew right then that something wasn't right," Bonnette said. 

Baton Rouge Police Department's police report said Caleb was found dead from an overdose in front of the bus station on Sept. 20, 2023. On the same day, BRPD says they made an attempt to contact the next of kin but were unsuccessful.

Bonnette said that she did get a call but did not answer as there was no message left on her phone and the number was from an out-of-state number.

"I'm scared to reject calls again, even if it says telemarketer, [I] check all my messages [now]," Bonnette said.

In November of 2023, Rowell was declared indigent and two months after his death, he was cremated. Bonnette said she had no clue of any of this.

"I have called every rejected, every missed call from that date up to after his cremation to November, and none of them were the coroner's office," Bonnette said.

It's unclear what information the coroner's office or police had about Bonnette and how to reach her, but WBRZ was able to find her address instantly by looking at the Acadia Parish Assessor's Office website. WBRZ also requested the police report that would show what investigators should have known about the whereabouts of the next of kin.

Bonnette can't bring her son home now and has fashioned a make-shift memorial to honor him, but she also wants to see changes to make sure no other family goes through what she went through.

"I want them to have to write down who they called, what time they called, and how many times they called, and leave a message," Bonnette said.

Representative Mandie Landry wants a state law that would require a more uniform policy that all coroner's offices would have to follow when it comes to notifying families of their loved ones.

"All this could have been avoided had that coroner's office followed state law like they're supposed to," Landry said.

Currently, state law says the office is required to make every reasonable effort to notify the next of kin.