Files Stolen From Cemetery That Is Target of Lawsuit

Police are investigating the mysterious theft of files from Wilmington Cemetery, where officials have found 190 bodies improperly buried.

Los Angeles Police Detective Terry Kirkbride said the cemetery’s managers reported that a number of “client files” were taken during a break-in, which occurred between 5 p.m. Tuesday and 10 a.m. Wednesday. However, Kirkbride said he does not know whether the missing documents pertain directly to the problem burials.

“We did get some fingerprints at the scene and we’ll see what those tell us,” Kirkbride said.

The cemetery’s caretaker, Jerome Poland, told police that he locked the cemetery’s office at 605 East O St. shortly after 5 p.m. Tuesday. On Wednesday, he arrived about 10 a.m. and discovered that the front door had been kicked in and a window broken, Kirkbride said.

In addition to the missing files, a typewriter and telephone were taken, Poland reported.

On the same day the burglary was reported, attorneys representing about a dozen families with relatives interred filed a class-action claim against the county and the cemetery district. One spokesman for the law firm said he was not surprised by the burglary.

“How shall we say it? This is an interesting coincidence that we anticipated,” said Jim Hall, a spokesman for the Long Beach law firm Perona, Langer & Beck.

The claim, which does not seek a specific monetary award, accused the agencies of financial mismanagement, selling grave sites that did not exist or that already had bodies in them, deplorable record-keeping, and ignoring the cemetery’s charter rules.

Kirkbride has been reviewing cemetery records since late last year because of Poland’s discovery three weeks after he took over as caretaker in October that some recently buried caskets at the 135-year-old cemetery were just inches below the ground’s surface, instead of the required three feet.

As officials began checking other graves dug in the last three years, they discovered some without protective liners, caskets buried in the wrong place and more than one body in at least one grave.

In some cases, grief-stricken families spent weeks trying to figure out where their loved ones had been buried. Their claim, which is a required precursor to a class-action lawsuit, is intended to ensure that the bodies will not be disturbed further, Hall said.

“The grave is more than a place you put somebody’s body,” Hall said. “You put all your love and emotions there . . . and when they dig that person up, they dig up those feelings, too. . . . What these people have done is just a monstrous act against the families.”

Cemetery district President Dade Albright said all but one of about 190 improper graves have been dug again and the caskets properly buried.

“We’ve done everything within our power to get things back in order,” Albright said. “We’re just doing the best we can to try to satisfy people.”

Asked whether he suspects the burglary is related to the improper burials, Albright said, “Yeah, it does make you wonder.”

“I’m trying to let the detectives do their work,” he said. “Hopefully, they’ll come up with something for us.”