Another cemetery scandal has surfaced involving grave desecration.
This time it is the Eden Memorial Park in Mission Hills, California, which is located at the northern end of the San Fernando Valley. This is a Jewish cemetery.
It is alleged that that groundskeepers were told to break-up vaults and caskets. Human body parts, caskets, vaults were disposed of. A class-action lawsuit has been filed.
Any time a grave is dug up the family needs to be notified. According to the news, this has been going on for about 15 years.
The remains were dumped in the northeast corner of the cemetery, which is being developed currently.
There is a finite amount of space between graves. There's supposed to be a 4-inch variance between graves. When a backhoe is used, it has to "surgically" dig a new grave so that the neighboring grave is undisturbed. In the allegation, the variance is less than 4 inches and the backhoe hit the buried vaults in adjoining graves, causing them to break open, and causing bones to fall into the new holes.
It is alleged that some of the damages were accidential and some intentional.
This is similar to another cemetery scandal (near Chicago) in which at Burr Oak Cemetery, 300 graves were desecrated and bodies were found to be dumped in piles throughout the cemetery.
UPDATE: The Los Angeles Times is reporting:
The class-action lawsuit, filed last week against Eden Memorial Park and its parent company, Service Corporation International, claims the cemetery improperly attempted to squeeze plots together to generate more profit, breaking existing vaults and moving or discarding remains in the process.
"We're aware of instances where they literally lost bodies," said Michael Avenatti, the lead plaintiff's attorney. "In other words, loved ones have been going to graves that have been empty."
A spokeswoman for Houston-based SCI denied the charges and said the company "will not and cannot try this case in the media."
"While very salacious, these allegations are just that -- allegations," company spokeswoman Lisa Marshall said in a statement. "Eden Memorial conducts extensive training with its employees and we support that with strict policies and procedures."
2 comments:
Oh how awful!!! Imagine the families that came to visit their loved one at the cemetary and finding that it was the body of a stranger!
Facinating though, that this is still happening.
Eden is a major Jewish cemetery in the San Fernando Valley. I know some people buried there (at least, maybe they were). This could be the basis of an interesting novel, eh?
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