By Dennis Woltering

AVONDALE, La. -- Members of the Garza family gathered a distance away as their mother Sadie's casket was removed from a vault at the Restlawn Park Cemtery and Mausoleum in Avondale. They were there for an exhumation, to see if the operators of the cemetery had placed their father Antonio's body in the coffin with their mother.

“It's just very gruesome seeing and watching everything.  And it's just very sad,” said daughter Linda Garza. 

For close to half an hour, workers banged on the coffin and used a crowbar to try to pry it open, as the family watched, waited and cringed.

“I'm devastated, I'm hurt,” said Linda.

“You cannot believe the anxiety and the suffering this family is going through because of what we're doing right now,” said Mike Ellise, the family’s attorney.

The exhumation follows the family's attempt last month to have their parents' coffins placed in the same vault so they could be together in death as Sadie and Antonio Garza had requested.

The law says a mausoleum vault has to stay sealed for one year after a coffin's placed inside. So when Antonio Garza died just two months after his wife 14 years ago, the family had to place his body in separate vault. But when the Garzas came out to see their parents placed in the same vault, they discovered that the casket the cemetery claimed was their father's wasn't his at all.

“My father's casket was gray, not blue.  And my father's casket did not have prayer hands on it, which this one did,” said George Garza.

In fact, the casket looked new, with bright paint and glittering chrome.

Within days the Garzas say a source close to the Chedotal family, which runs the cemetery, confirmed that was not their father's coffin. And the source said the cemetery believes his body had been moved into the coffin with their mother.

“My hope was to really know that my father was in there, so we could put this to rest,” said Linda Garza.

But when they finally pried open the lid and the pathologist the family hired to examine the remains got a chance to look inside, the family got more bad news.

“There’s only one body in it, as proven by the forensic people that we had on site,” said George Garza.

“It's got us angry, it's got us hurt,” said Linda Garza. “Our emotions are so mixed up we're in shock even that this even had to happen, that they had to reopen my mother.”

“Very upsetting, mainly seeing my mother going through this, and that was my grandma.  I loved her very much.  I was 16 when she passed,” said sherry aguilar, a granddaughter.

The family's attorney says this whole thing is just a sham.

“They couldn't find the body.  I think that's what the bottom line is and because they couldn't find the body, they had to put on exhibition to make out as if the body was here,” said Ellise.

Members of the Garza family say it now seems clear that the operators of this mausoleum tried to pull off a hoax, using a new and empty coffin and claiming it was their father's when the Garzas tried to have their mother's and father's casket placed in the same vault.  The Garzas are left wondering why cemetery would do it.

They took the money. For that and knowing that they didn't know where the body was, pulled the hoax, putting a casket that was not him there,” said George Graza.

Harold Chedotal, a brother of the Chedotal family that owns the mausoleum was here for the exhumation, refused to answer questions, saying “No comment” when asked where Antonio Garza’s body is.

If we can’t find him, tell us we can't so we can have closure,” said George Garza.  

“Let us know, let us have closure on this,” said Linda Garza.. 

The Garzas now believe Restlawn Park Cemetery has lost their father's body and coffin. Calls to the owners and their attorney requesting comment were not returned.

The cemetery never requested permission to move the father's body into another coffin as the law requires.

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