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Maryland restaurant draws outrage for staying open while dead woman's body lies in restroom for hours

According to officials, the woman died of a heart attack, but the resturant staffers were still seating patrons while cops stood outside the restroom

LARGO, MARYLAND: A grill restaurant in Maryland sparked controversy by remaining open even though a deceased woman's body had been lying in the restroom for hours. When police arrived at the restaurant on Wednesday, October 12, with a complaint that a lady was discovered unconscious and believed to have died of a heart attack, according to Fox5, the Jasper's was still busy and seating patrons at that time.

According to Prince George's County police, they got a complaint about a woman who was unresponsive inside the Jasper's in discovered at 6:30 pm. The deceased customer most likely suffered heart attack, according to medics who attended to the incident in the 9000 block of Lottsford Road.

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According to a police report, the restaurant in Largo, Maryland, was open while the women's restroom was locked up. The woman's body was reportedly taken out of the establishment through a side entrance two hours later, according to Fred Rosenthal, the restaurant's owner.

“It’s not something that we are accustomed to,” one of the restaurant’s managers, Miguel Perea, said. “At the moment, we thought we were doing the right thing, and we realised maybe we were wrong.” Outraged Largo residents said, “They stayed open, that’s kind of irresponsible”.

After the incident, a person who was in the restaurant at that time wrote about the same on Twitter. The now viral post has garnered more than 15,700 likes.

“A women died in Jaspers (LARGO MD) restaurant yesterday in the bathroom (cardiac arrest) but let’s talk about how the establishment didn’t close the restaurant and let her body stay in the bathroom until closing..NEVER GOING THERE AGAIN,” tweeted Tori Monshae.

She continued in the Twitter thread, “Like that’s just some money hungry a** s***…on top of that all the servers were under distress so the service was just trash (it’s kinda already expected tho) but like I just would never go to that ghetto a** place again.”

The establishment have apologized to the woman's family and were trying to help in any way. “If they feel that we disrespected them in any way, that is not what we were trying to do,” Perea added.

Jasper’s posted a statement on its website addressing the incident. The statement read, “Last night one of our customers tragically passed away within our establishment. On behalf of our ownership, management, and staff we send the sincerest and most heartfelt support and condolences to the deceased’s family. We will be reaching out to the family to see if there is any way we can support them in this time of grief. We immediately contacted county authorities and followed their protocol and procedure. Under the authorities’ guidance, we closed the area to patrons until all emergency services could arrive and followed the direction of the authorities.”