Sunday, December 12, 1999
Lawsuit: Burial plots reused
Family wants graves found
BY SHEILA McLAUGHLIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Lost graves and missing headstones are at the heart of a lawsuit against the Wesleyan Cemetery and Garr Funeral Home.
Julia Smiley of Detroit, Mary Jane Smith of Mount Healthy and Thurman Cooley of Walnut Hills sued in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court last week to find the graves of four family members buried at the Northside cemetery since 1981.
They also want compensatory damages for their trouble.
The suit claims the cemetery and the West End funeral home were negligent and/or reckless in handling the remains and grave of Lula Mae Cooley and the graves of Richard Cooley, Mary Cooley and Nathaniel Cooley.
The family first discovered problems last May upon visiting the grave of Lula Mae Cooley.
They found a new grave had been dug at the site and her headstone was missing, the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati said.
Cemetery caretakers told the relatives that Lula Mae Cooley was buried in another plot, the lawsuit alleges. A headstone of another family also was found to be missing.
Trouble at the cemetery surfaced in 1992 when children found human bones on a cemetery dirt pile at 4003 Colerain Ave. It was discovered that no records of the graves had been kept since 1843.
Funeral director and cemetery operator the Rev. Joseph Garr was cleared of criminal allegations that he recycled graves and abused corpses.
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