Wider Probe Urged at Compton Cemetery

Saying that they have evidence of wrongdoing that stretches years back, distraught relatives of family members buried at the now-closed Woodlawn Cemetery in Compton demanded Wednesday that state authorities widen an investigation into allegedly improper burials.

About a dozen relatives and friends gathered in front of the locked gate of the cemetery to express frustration at how little information they have received since investigators discovered apparent improprieties in the handling of remains at the 120-year-old memorial park.

“There has to be a widespread investigation of what’s been going on,” said Felicia Ford, who has several close relatives buried at Woodlawn. “We have so many questions. Who’s going to investigate the people who are caretakers and why can’t the cemetery operators come forward to talk with us?”

Also at the gathering was Compton school board member Basil Kimbrew, who said the relatives solicited his help.

“They feel like they are being neglected,” said Kimbrew, who added that he wants state legislators to convene a local panel to hear the families’ grievances.

State inspectors ordered the cemetery closed last week after they found human bone fragments and casket shards strewn about the grounds.

Several relatives say that in recent years they encountered freshly turned earth at long-deceased relatives’ grave sites, misplaced headstones and confusion about where graves were located.

“We visited my grandmother in November and December around the holidays and noticed fresh dirt, and she’s been deceased since 1969,” said Ford, whose paternal and maternal grandmothers and an aunt are buried at Woodlawn.

Ford, a flight attendant who lives in Beverly Hills, said she has talked to residents who live near the cemetery who told her that for many years they have witnessed workers digging at grave sites and moving bodies.

She and her family are concerned because state investigators are examining only a portion of the 25-acre cemetery and have said they will not exhume bodies to determine if they are in their proper place.

Her family has already decided to have their loved ones’ remains exhumed on their own to make sure they have not been mishandled. They are hoping the state will help to defray the costs.

Rita Norwood has borne the almost unimaginable pain of burying her 19-year-old son, a beloved 18-year-old nephew and, just seven months ago, her fiance at Woodlawn. All were victims of unsolved murders.

After her fiance was buried, she said, she was directed by caretakers to different grave sites several times. She finally laid down a rock to act as a makeshift headstone so she would know where to go. But now she is unsure if it marks the spot of her fiance’s grave or someone else’s.

The cemetery operators, Evergreen Memorial Care, could not be reached for comment.

Some relief for the families may come soon. Assemblyman Carl Washington (D-Compton) said Wednesday that he has asked legislative leaders to assemble a select committee to hold statewide public hearings on suspected wrongdoing at cemeteries.

Washington is pushing to have the first hearing in Los Angeles in April, said a spokesman. And he is calling for a review of the state’s regulatory role.