Families who long ago buried their grief with loved ones at two cemeteries are facing a second loss, as they search crypts and peek into coffins looking for bodies that aren't there.
"They've been dug up," said Robin Blanton after searching Lincoln Memorial Park in suburban Carson for her father and great-grandfather.Bodies were plucked from caskets minutes after last rites and stacked in nearby mass graves so the burial plots could be resold, according to two class-action lawsuits filed last week against Lincoln and Paradise Memorial Park in Santa Fe Springs.
At Paradise, caskets also were reused, one of the suits claims.
The Lincoln suit claimed up to 150,000 bodies may have been mishandled.
"It's probably one of the most horrific things I've ever seen," said attorney Jeffrey W. Steinberger, who filed both suits.
"What happened to `rest in peace'? They were supposed to be resting in peace," said DeLong Jackson after locating graves of three relatives. "We found them, but we don't know if they're there."
"At Lincoln, the relatives destroyed the mausoleum, opening up crypts to find relatives. There were no bodies and no caskets and no decomposing anything in there," Steinberger said.
"My father was put in there in 1993 and now he's gone. We didn't watch them seal it. You think you're putting them to rest and they aren't here," said Stacey Oliver.
Both cemeteries also are subjects of criminal investigations.
"I've never seen anything as disgusting as this, disturbing the dead," said Louis Bonsignore, deputy director of the Department of Consumer Affairs.
The state seized control of Paradise in June. The state Cemetery Board on Thursday confiscated bank accounts and records of Hollywood Memorial Park, operators of Lincoln, and on Friday seized control of the 20-acre cemetery.
The Lincoln endowment and trust fund was $450,000 short.
"The owners have admitted that they took the money. Some $600,000 should have been there and there's $142,000 now. It's grand theft," said Ray Giunta, executive officer of the Cemetery Board.
Officials at Hollywood Memorial Park declined to comment on the suit and state investigation, said a receptionist who refused to give her name.
Paradise owners Alma Fraction, her daughter Felicia Fraction and son Victor Fornter have gone into hiding since the state took over their cemetery, authorities said.
The suits also says local and state governmental agencies failed to enforce laws.
Last week, relatives descended on Lincoln's dying, brown lawns.
Monica Jackson watered the grass at her father's grave and polished the marker.
"The headstone is cracked and the dirt is loose. I'll never know if he's in there," said Jackson. "This really hurts. Who wants their relatives messed with?"
Blanton, who couldn't find her father and great-grandfather, pointed to a rifled nearby crypt with an open coffin. "There's a man in that casket. That's somebody's relative out there like that."