Burial scam pains relatives // Cemetery accused of moving bodies to resell

  plots

  Jonathan T. Lovitt ; Richard Price

  06/23/1995

  USA Today

  FINAL

  Page 03A

  (Copyright 1995)

  SANTA FE SPRINGS, Calif. - Charles Kirvin embarks this morning on a

  ghastly and heart-wrenching mission.

  He'll search a cemetery to see whether the remains of his wife, Stella, are still

  buried in the family plot.

  "It's disgusting," says the truck driver, 53, fighting back tears. "How can

  someone do this? It's a mortal sin."

  Like hundreds of others, Kirvin has been waiting for state authorities to open the

  gates of Paradise Memorial Park amid a probe of charges that cemetery officials

  were double-selling burial plots.

  The scam, according to state officials: Old remains were removed from plots and

  dumped in a pile. The plots were sold again and other bodies were buried there.

  This morning, relatives will fan across the 10-acre cemetery hoping to spot the

  right markers on the same graves where they last laid flowers.

  Families who find that bodies have been moved face a harsh truth: Few remains

  ever will be identified.

  Overwhelmed by grief and tension, families waited and wept Thursday outside

  the wrought-iron fence as bulldozers dug a mass grave in preparation for a

  memorial service later this week.

  "My mom's been dead for more than 13 years, and I'm still not over it," said

  Vincent Millhouse, 31, of El Segundo. "How could they ever make this up to

  me?"

  Ray Giunta of the California State Cemetery Board said the park has been

  double-selling graves since 1986, moving old remains to the "spoils pile,"

  normally used for the excess soil from grave-digging.

  Some 200 discarded markers were found on the property, but Giunta said as

  many as 2,000 bodies could have been disinterred from graves that date as far

  back as 1945.

  The family that owns the cemetery was unavailable. But one member, Victor

  Fornter, told of the practice in an affidavit, telling Giunta, "I just thought I

  could."

  The cemetery, established in 1927, was sold in 1967 to its current owners, who

  have publicized bargain prices. Plots go for $170.

  The problem surfaced after the owners missed a June 1 deadline for filing an

  audit with the state. Giunta ordered a full, on-site audit and discovered bones

  protruding from a mountain of dirt on the weed-covered property.

  Looking over plot records, Giunta also discovered names had been crossed out

  and new ones inked in.

  "Deplorable," he called the cemetery. "One of the worst I've ever seen."

  Some plots may have corpses that don't belong there, meaning families must

  decide whether to share, or to relocate the remains of their loved ones.

  "It gets sticky," Giunta said. "This is really horrible."

  Families couldn't agree more. Faye Baptist, a 63-year-old cafeteria worker who

  buried her son here in 1979 and her husband in 1992, can't push away the image

  of bones sticking from the earth.

  "It just sickens me," she said. "To think it could be my husband or my son."

  Among horrified onlookers Thursday was Lucy Davis, who comes here three

  times a year to lay flowers and tend graves of 17 relatives. "What's happening to

  my family? This is a nightmare."

  GRAPHIC,b/w, USA TODAY (Map); PHOTOS,b/w,Bob Riha,

  Jr.,Gamma-Liaison(2)