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Taphophilia (dot) Com...
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Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
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Funeral company accused of mixing up grave |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Sunday, 26 December 2004 |
B. POOLE
Tucson Citizen
A local funeral company has been accused of putting the wrong person in a reserved resting place for the second time since 2002.
On Sept. 2, siblings Pamela, Randall and Katherine Johnson and Barbara Molchan filed a lawsuit against SCI Arizona Funeral Services Inc., which operates South Lawn Cemetery, 5401 S. Park Ave., claiming that their sister, Shirley May Johnson, was buried in 1990 in a grave intended for their mother, Gertrude Johnson.
The error was discovered in 2002, when workers found Shirley's casket while excavating Gertrude's grave, according to the lawsuit.
Last week the company had to move a man from an East Lawn Palms Mortuary & Cemetery crypt intended for Jack Lee Brown, a Tucson man who died in August 2003 and has been in a temporary crypt awaiting construction of his final resting place, Brown's wife, Elaine, said Thursday.
Hal Wilmot, East Lawn's manager, declined to comment Friday.
Robyn Sadowsky, a spokeswoman for Houston-based Service Corporation International, the parent company of SCI Arizona, was not aware of the lawsuit Friday, but she admitted the cemetery made a mistake with Brown's crypt.
"We have done everything we can to resolve that issue," she said, declining further comment.
Last year, Brown paid $18,900 upfront for three eye-level crypts in an unfinished mausoleum at East Lawn, 5801 E. Grant Road, she said.
"It's a very costly thing, and you just think people will do it right," she said Thursday.
The crypts are for her husband, herself and her son, Guy C. Brown, who died 18 years ago and is buried at East Lawn, she said.
Brown discovered the problem three weeks ago when she called to check on mausoleum construction. She was told that the building was finished in July and that her husband's crypt - the middle one of the three she paid for - was occupied by a man who died in July, she said.
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"They were supposed to call me when it was finished. No one called me in July," Brown said.
For 12 years the Johnson siblings visited an empty grave they thought contained their sister, their lawsuit says.
They were forced to exhume their father, Arthur, buried in 1997 alongside their sister, to ensure he was in the grave, the suit claims.
Attempts to reach the plaintiffs were unsuccessful Friday, and their attorney was unavailable for comment.
Brown was offered alternative crypts, but she wants the eye-level ones she paid a premium for, she said.
She is grateful the other man's family was willing to have him moved, she said.
Now she is worried that the cemetery will make another mistake when it moves her son to what she hopes will be his final resting place.
"Let's hope he's still there," she said Friday at his grave outside the mausoleum.
In the past three years, two complaints have been filed with the local Better Business Bureau against Tucson Funeral Group, which includes local funeral homes and cemeteries operated by SCI, said Tom Collier, president of the local BBB.
Neither complaint involved a grave mix-up, and each was resolved amicably, he said.
Houston-based SCI owns more than 3,000 funeral homes and about 600 cemeteries worldwide, according to Tucson Citizen archives.
SCI Arizona Funeral Services Inc. operates Advantage Funeral & Cremation Services, Arizona Mortuary University Chapel, East Lawn Palms Mortuary & Cemetery, Heather Mortuary & Cemetery and South Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery in Tucson.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=local&story_id=122004a4_eastlawn |
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Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Quote Repository
“The final reward of the dead - to die no more.” Nietzsche
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