Cemetery Sued Over Ashes Found on Freeway

As a child, Susan Adele Lescoe loved to feed the swans at Forest Lawn Memorial--Park in Glendale, escaping with her mother and sister to a piece of the country just minutes from the heart of metropolitan Los Angeles.

So it was especially comforting to her family last fall when Lescoe returned to the tranquillity of a favorite childhood retreat after losing a long struggle with cancer. Her ashes were interred in October in the family vault near the hilltop at Forest Lawn, famed burial site of such celebrities as Sammy Davis Jr., ‘40s matinee idol Robert Taylor, and Vic Tayback, best known as diner owner Mel on the television series “Alice.”

But a day after Lescoe’s family solemnly watched Forest Lawn officials place a sealed urn in her marble-covered niche, a small cardboard box that had been used to transport the woman’s ashes from a mortuary in Las Vegas was found by a Caltrans worker on the nearby Glendale Freeway.

It contained a torn bag brimming with ashes--Lescoe’s ashes, her family alleges. The box had been struck by a car, and some ashes had spilled onto the median. Others were scattered in the fast lane.

The Caltrans worker frantically attempted to scoop up the dispersed remains, but nearly half of the box’s contents was lost, the family says.

“We thought she was at rest, finally, after years of being sick with cancer,” said Edna Schofield, Lescoe’s 81-year-old mother and one of several family members who had delivered the cardboard box to Forest Lawn several days earlier. “They advertise peace of mind. How can we ever have peace of mind knowing that Susan’s ashes are scattered on the freeway?”

Schofield, her husband, Frank, and four other family members--Lescoe’s sister in Fresno and her husband and two children in Nevada--have sued Forest Lawn for allegedly mishandling the remains. Recently, they amended their complaint to include allegations that Forest Lawn attempted to cover up its mistake by breaking into Lescoe’s grave and possibly depositing other ashes in her urn.

Forest Lawn spokesman Ted Brandt described the Lescoe case as “very strange,” but he said the cemetery has done nothing wrong. Brandt said Forest Lawn followed normal procedures after receiving Lescoe’s ashes from her family in October.

“We are convinced that the remains in the Freedom Mausoleum are those of Mrs. Lescoe,” he said.

Edna Schofield and her relatives, however, said they are equally convinced Forest Lawn is wrong.

“Whoever or whatever is in there, it is not Susan,” Edna Schofield said.

Lescoe, 49, died Oct. 17 in Las Vegas, where she had lived with her husband, Edward, a carpet salesman. A homemaker, she had spent most of her final four years battling breast, lung and brain cancer. She died of pneumonia.

Three days after her death, Lescoe was cremated at the Palm Mortuary in Las Vegas. Her husband and two children collected her ashes, which had been sealed in a plastic bag, in a white cardboard box supplied by the mortuary. The box was marked with her name, an identification number, and the label “Temporary Container” in large, red letters.

With the box stored in the trunk of their car, the Lescoes drove to Burbank, where Edna and Frank Schofield have lived in the same red-brick house since 1942.

On Oct. 27, the Lescoes and Schofields delivered the cardboard box and ashes to Forest Lawn. The following day, they attended a memorial service in North Hollywood, and on Oct. 29, they witnessed the interment ceremony at Forest Lawn. The next day, the cardboard box was discovered on the freeway.

“If they had told us at the time of the witnessing service that they had lost the box, we would have said, ‘Accidents happen,’ ” said Edna Schofield. “But to let us have the service, which was heart-wrenching, and then find out in a few days that it was not Susan. . . . We can’t even go up there and put flowers there.”

Brandt, the Forest Lawn spokesman, acknowledged that something went wrong with Lescoe’s box, but he said her remains had already been transferred into a brass urn. Shortly after the cemetery was served with the lawsuit in January, he said, Forest Lawn conducted an internal investigation, which entailed the opening of Lescoe’s vault.

Christopher J. Morey, an attorney for Lescoe’s family, said “breaking into” the vault amounted to civil and criminal trespassing, but Brandt said Forest Lawn had a legal right to investigate the complaint. He denied that the vault was opened as part of a cover-up or that new ashes were placed in the urn.

“We obviously had to check for ourselves,” Brandt said. “It was opened strictly to verify the remains were still there--to satisfy ourselves.”

In March, the vault was opened again, this time in the presence of family members, their attorneys, and representatives from Palm Mortuary. Larry Neubauer, a Palm Mortuary mortician who attended the opening of the vault, said Saturday that the bag “was packaged in a way consistent” with what the mortuary uses.

Forest Lawn officials, however, are at a loss to explain how the cardboard box and bag of ashes ended up on the Glendale Freeway. At the time, Brandt said, the cemetery’s policy was to remove all labels from such boxes after the contents were removed. The boxes were then hauled to a dump, he said. Forest Lawn now destroys the boxes on the premises, he said.

“This is an extremely rare situation,” Brandt said. “We just don’t have this type of thing happen. We have so few complaints. I believe the great majority of families we serve are certainly more than satisfied with our service.”

Edna and Frank Schofield agree that the problem with their daughter’s remains was probably “an aberration.” In an interview in their home last week, Edna Schofield spoke fondly of the cemetery and recalled with nostalgia the many family visits to its pond and rolling hills.

The couple bought a vault at Forest Lawn in 1976, and several years later, their elder daughter, Linda Baldwin, bought a nearby niche for herself and Susan. Edna Schofield said the family wanted to be together, but she now wonders if that will be possible.

“It is a beautiful place, and we have loved it for years,” she said, her eyes glistening with tears. “(But) I might just have my ashes scattered. I have no idea what is going to happen. I am so upset right now.”

Forest Lawn has offered to settle the lawsuit. Morey said the latest offer was “in six figures,” but the Schofields said the family wants an admission of guilt from the cemetery, an apology and $500,000 in damages for each of the six family members. Forest Lawn’s apparent intransigence prompted the family to seek publicity.

Above all, the Schofields said, they want to put their daughter to rest. Ever since their attorneys retrieved the cardboard box and ashes from the coroner’s office last Halloween night, the contents have been under lock and key as evidence in the lawsuit.

“In some way I think Susan is responsible for it,” Edna Schofield said of the box appearing on the Glendale Freeway. “She wanted us to know that her ashes were not in that urn, that she was not at rest. And that’s where she wanted to be.”

Even so, it may never be possible to know if--and where--Susan Lescoe’s remains are. Forest Lawn officials and attorneys for the family agreed it is impossible to prove which set of ashes are Lescoe’s--those in the urn or those in the cardboard box. Neither set contains a metal identification tag typically used by the Las Vegas mortuary, and both sets of remains have been burned and ground to the point where they cannot be identified scientifically.