SC funeral home owner helped get elderly woman to redo will in effort to steal $20 million

The owner of an Aiken funeral home who was charged with conspiring to make a fraudulent will to steal some $20 million from an elderly woman’s estate has pled guilty, according to federal court records.

Cody Lee Anderson, 37, owner and operator of George Funeral Home, pled guilty on Tuesday, Feb. 11, to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, according to court records. The maximum penalty for this crime is 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

Greg Harris, the Columbia lawyer who represents Anderson, declined comment but indicated he may elaborate on Anderson’s situation at a later stage in the proceedings.

Anderson’s partner in crime, Thomas Bateman Jr., pleaded guilty to the same charge last August. He is scheduled to be sentenced in Columbia on March 3 in federal court by U.S. Judge Joe Anderson.

Evidence presented in the case showed that in 2020, during the pandemic, a new will for the woman was drawn up by Anderson that purported to leave most of her $20 million estate to Bateman and the rest to Anderson. The money was being held in federally-insured banks — Security Federal Bank and Bank of America.

Before the woman died in 2022, Bateman drove her to Anderson’s funeral home, the indictment said. Anderson brought three of his funeral home employees outside to witness her signing the new will, the indictment said.

The new will designated Anderson as the personal representative, a task for which he stood to be paid a fee of 5%. Five percent of the $20 million estate is $1 million.

The woman, who was 88 when she died in 2022, had for years been “incapable of making a knowing, intelligent and voluntary determination regarding disposition of her assets because of mental defect or infirmity,” according to the indictment and other evidence in the case.

The 2020 will replaced a 2001 will in which the woman provided that, if she were not survived by her husband, all her assets would go to various friends and charitable organizations.

According to civil lawsuits contesting the new will and statements this week in federal court, the woman was identified as Margaret Crandall, the widow of a wealthy nuclear scientist, John Lou Crandall. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, he had participated in the design and development of production reactors at the Savannah River Plant, now the Savannah River Site.

In the federal indictment issued last July against Anderson and Bateman, Margaret Crandall was identified only as “M.C.”

Neither Bateman nor Anderson ever received any money from Crandall’s estate. No sentencing date has been set for Anderson.

The case was investigated by the FBI and the S.C. Attorney General’s Office Vulnerable Adults and Medicaid Provider Fraud unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Scott Matthews and Winston Holliday are prosecuting the case.

This story was originally published February 14, 2025 at 2:13 PM.