{"id":28797,"date":"2016-04-18T08:00:50","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T15:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/2-years-after-cemetery-shutdown-families-still-seek-answers\/"},"modified":"2016-04-18T08:00:50","modified_gmt":"2016-04-18T15:00:50","slug":"2-years-after-cemetery-shutdown-families-still-seek-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/2-years-after-cemetery-shutdown-families-still-seek-answers\/","title":{"rendered":"2 years after cemetery shutdown, families still seek answers"},"content":{"rendered":"

BARTLETT, Tenn. <\/strong>\u2014 Jackie Hughes longs to grieve over her sister\u2019s death in simple ways: visit her grave, lay out flowers, and pour a can of Bud Light \u2014 her sister\u2019s favorite \u2014 on the spot. But three years after Tawana Hillard\u2019s death, Hughes hasn\u2019t been able to spill a drop.<\/p>\n

Hillard is missing. Since her graveside service at Galilee Memorial Gardens near Memphis in 2012, her body has been lost, along with hundreds of others whose remains were entrusted to the cemetery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to be able to walk in, to put flowers down, to just kneel and talk with her, whatever,\u201d Hughes says. Instead she leafs through photo albums at home, smiling as she remembers Saturday mornings spent talking with her sister about their love of blues music.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, state officials closed Galilee. Owner Jemar Lambert was accused of misplacing hundreds of bodies, burying multiple cadavers in the same grave, and crushing caskets to fit them into single plots. Lambert received 10 years\u2019 probation in a plea deal. He left behind disorganized records, an investigation that continues today, and families who don\u2019t know where their loved ones are buried.<\/p>\n

Hughes says Lambert told her family that several burials were scheduled the day of her sister\u2019s ceremony, so he would put Hillard in her grave later. Other families say Lambert told them the same story. Hughes is among hundreds now suing Galilee and the funeral homes that sent bodies there. She says she would use any damages awarded to find her sister and relocate her body to another cemetery.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow much longer do we have to wait?\u201d Hughes says. \u201cI\u2019m still in limbo.\u201d<\/p>\n

What happened at Galilee is not all that rare. From Washington, D.C., to Chicago and elsewhere, lawsuits have been filed and charges pursued over mismanaged cemeteries, with accusations of unmarked graves, burial urns unearthed and dumped, plots resold, and vaults broken to make room for more remains.<\/p>\n

Critics and families want more rigorous oversight nationwide, from small, family-run operations like Galilee to well-known national sites such as Arlington National Cemetery.<\/p>\n

The federal government leaves cemetery regulation largely to states, which vary dramatically in approach, according to an Associated Press analysis of statutes, enforcement and lawsuits. Most states regulate cemeteries that are run as businesses, such as Galilee, but not religious, municipal or family cemeteries. State laws, however, are largely limited to licensing, establishing funeral director boards, developing a complaint process and providing financial protections for consumers who buy plots.<\/p>\n

Many laws say officials reserve the right to inspect cemeteries, but that occurs only when regulators act on complaints. Few states \u2014 California is one, Florida another \u2014 require annual on-site inspections.<\/p>\n

\u201cCemetery regulation is almost uniformly awful, where it exists at all,\u201d says Joshua Slocum, director of the nonprofit Funeral Consumers Alliance, which has pushed for more federal regulation.<\/p>\n

A lack of oversight appears to have led to the malfeasance at Galilee, families and attorneys suing the cemetery say.<\/p>\n

Tennessee law requires records inspections every two years at cemeteries, but not annual inspections of grounds. Aside from revoking or suspending a license, performing random or quarterly inspections, and issuing fines up to about $1,000, Tennessee has little power to punish cemetery owners.<\/p>\n

In 2010, Jemar Lambert took over the tree-lined Galilee cemetery from his father, whose grave sits unperturbed near the entrance. It catered to working- and middle-class families, most of whom are black. But record-keeping became a problem, according to investigators\u2019 reports.<\/p>\n

Galilee\u2019s registration certificate expired in December 2010. The state didn\u2019t renew it after auditors discovered Lambert\u2019s disorganized records. The state started investigating, but Lambert kept burying bodies at Galilee for three years as he appealed for a license renewal.<\/p>\n

By 2013, investigators had accused Lambert of burying up to 200 bodies in land adjacent to Galilee that he didn\u2019t own. In 2014, he faced more charges. Relatives of three people buried at Galilee complained to him that they couldn\u2019t find the graves. Lambert and two funeral directors searched records, and disinterred and opened caskets \u2014 finding some that were crushed and stacked in single gravesites. They never found the bodies. The funeral directors informed the state. Investigators charged Lambert with abuse of a corpse and theft, and took over management of the cemetery.<\/p>\n

In March 2015, Lambert accepted a plea deal. To Hughes, his punishment isn\u2019t enough. \u201cTen years\u2019 probation?\u201d she says. \u201cWell, hell. Go on fixin\u2019 to do what you was doin\u2019, because you\u2019re not going to get no time behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Investigators have reviewed Galilee\u2019s slipshod paper records against the plots and inspected the adjacent land. Experts jabbed a 10-foot pole into the ground in front of grave markers \u2014 if it didn\u2019t go down as far as it should, they\u2019d probably find another set of stacked coffins. Burial areas have been tightened to fit more bodies, some graves are marked occupied but appear empty, and many are too shallow, according to court records.<\/p>\n

Through his lawyer, Lambert declined an interview. Attorney William J. Haynes III says in a statement that problems at Galilee existed before Lambert was born.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of the allegations surrounding Jemar\u2019s tenure at Galilee do not take these facts into account. That is highly unfair to Jemar and his family, who have cooperated with the Galilee receivership to the best of their ability,\u201d the statement says.<\/p>\n

State Sen. Mark Norris, who represents the Memphis suburb Bartlett, home to Galilee, says the state needs to look further into what happened and says officials could consider reviewing cemetery records more frequently.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps at the beginning of the next General Assembly we\u2019ll be able to make some changes that will give people comfort,\u201d he says. \u201cIt may be cold comfort and it\u2019s not going to be enough to really address the suffering of these particular families, but maybe … because of this terrible experience they\u2019ve had, others may not experience the same fate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance declined to provide an interview with Commissioner Julie Mix McPeak about Galilee and cemetery oversight. Instead, in an email, spokesman Kevin Walters placed blame on Lambert, accusing him of falsifying records to deceive auditors and customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe empathize with the people who have been grievously affected by Mr. Lambert\u2019s reckless and criminal behavior,\u201d Walters wrote. \u201cToday, it is easy for anyone to second guess.\u201d<\/p>\n

Changes in oversight would be unfair to cemeteries \u201cattempting to operate their businesses honorably,\u201d Walters wrote.<\/p>\n

Many of those affected by Galilee think the state hasn\u2019t done enough. Wanda Chambers, whose mother and other relatives are buried there, filed a complaint in 2013 with the state, more than two years after Galilee\u2019s license expired. She says Lambert was still burying people and Galilee was poorly maintained. She\u2019s not satisfied with the state\u2019s response.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey should have been able to move a little faster and do a better job to open the cemetery back up to let us go back in,\u201d Chambers says.<\/p>\n

The state says no decision regarding Galilee\u2019s future will be made until investigators determine how many grave spaces are occupied.<\/p>\n

Today at Galilee, friends and family can rarely visit loved ones. Last Memorial Day, the state reopened Galilee for a few hours \u2014 the only time the gates have opened to the public since February 2014.<\/p>\n

Visitors navigated uneven grounds, broken headstones and trash. They tiptoed among ragged plots, searching for those they had lost once, and then again. A pastor stood on top of old graves and prayed. A man played \u201cAmazing Grace\u201d on his saxophone. One woman stepped in a hole and fell.<\/p>\n

Hughes again searched for her sister\u2019s gravesite. She cried, holding flowers and balloons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t find my sister,\u201d she screamed.<\/p>\n

Minutes later, she gave up, releasing the balloons toward the heavens.<\/p>\n

__<\/p>\n

Associated Press reporters Kristin M. Hall in Nashville and Johnny Clark in Bartlett contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BARTLETT, Tenn. \u2014 Jackie Hughes longs to grieve over her sister\u2019s death in simple ways: visit her grave, lay out flowers, and pour a can of Bud Light \u2014 her sister\u2019s favorite \u2014 on the spot. But three years after Tawana Hillard\u2019s death, Hughes hasn\u2019t been able to spill a drop. Hillard is missing. Since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-28797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28797\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28797"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=28797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}