Mortuary ‘Desecrated’ Remains in Cremations, Jurors Are Told

A Newport Beach mortuary “desecrated” human remains by cremating more than one body at the same time and presented unsuspecting survivors with urns containing ashes from more than one corpse, a lawyer claimed Monday.

The allegations, flatly denied by Pacific Memorial Park and Mortuary in Corona del Mar, were made in Orange County Superior Court in the first day in the trial of a lawsuit testing the propriety and legality of some operations at the mortuary, cemetery and crematory.

Ruth Wiese, 80, claims that the park, on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, mishandled the remains of her late husband after his death on April 7, 1984. She says the park buried her husband’s cremated remains six weeks after the funeral services, leading to severe emotional distress when she learned that she had regularly visited an empty grave.

Wiese’s lawyer, Federico C. Sayre, also told jurors that an analysis of the exhumed remains of the late Arthur W. Wiese revealed an artificial tooth that did not belong to the deceased. Pacific View violated state law prohibiting multiple cremation and the commingling of ashes, Sayre alleged.

Fifteen of 16 dental crowns “made of gold or highly precious metal” that should have been in the urn were missing, Sayre claimed.

Pacific View should have performed the cremation and burial more quickly, according to mortuary lawyer Marshall T. Hunt. But Wiese’s claim of multiple cremations is untrue, he said. And Hunt suggested that the presence of the artificial tooth may have been due to sloppy work by the experts Sayre hired to examine the remains.

Document Copies Displayed

“Nobody understands why the delay (occurred),” Hunt told jurors in the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Richard N. Parslow Jr. “We know it was inadvertent. No one intended to cause Mrs. Wiese emotional distress.”

In opening statements to the jury, Sayre presented six blowups of government documents and Pacific View records.

Five specified the date of cremation as April 12, 1984: the death certificate, the burial permit, a card contained in the exhumed urn, and two separate pages of mortuary records.

The sixth blowup was of a page from Pacific View’s cremation log, showing that the remains were cremated on April 16.

The page was made up of single-line entries logging the name of the deceased, weight, crematory number and time of cremation for each corpse.

Times logged show that Arthur Wiese’s remains were burned at the same time as two other corpses, Sayre claimed.

“Always in every case human remains would be kept in the retort (oven) when the next cremation began, thus desecrating both,” Sayre told jurors.

6-Week Delay ‘Inexcusable’

Referring to the same document, Hunt told jurors it is proof that remains were properly handled. The small overlaps show only that crematory workers were collecting remains that had been raked and swept from the oven as the next corpse was being cremated, Hunt said.

The six-week delay in the burial was “inexcusable,” Hunt said. But he said the contract Ruth Wiese signed did not specify a date for cremation or burial.

“All we can say is these things happen,” Hunt said. “They tried to explain to Mrs. Wiese.”

Hunt insisted that Pacific View “is not a volume operation. They do care, and they do try to treat every family, every surviving spouse and remains with privacy and decency.”

Wiese suffered continuing severe emotional trauma, Sayre told the jurors. Sayre said he would specify the amount of damages he is seeking at the close of the trial, which is expected to last four weeks.

The Wieses were married 18 years and, at the time of his death, were celebrating his retirement at age 84 from the engineering firm he founded.

Ruth Wiese is still haunted by the vision of cemetery workers laughing at her for the “futile and humiliating exercise of visiting and putting flowers on an empty grave,” Sayre said.