Families Seek Relatives’ Graves at Reopened Cemetery

Violet Mercer was able to locate her children’s graves without a problem, but she was distressed to see that their shared headstone looked as if it had been moved.

“I hope they are still in there,” she said, pointing to the ground around the stone plaque. “Look at that; it’s been tampered with.”

She was among scores of people who showed up Thursday at Woodlawn Cemetery in Compton, which was reopened for families to visit their loved ones’ graves for the first time in nearly three months.

The graveyard was shut down in March after state investigators found bone fragments scattered about and announced that single-burial graves had been unlawfully converted to multiple graves.

No interments, disinterments or sales of plots will be permitted at the 120-year-old cemetery for the time being. But, under the eyes of security guards and a few lawyers seeking clients for class-action lawsuits against cemetery owners, family members streamed through the gates, hoping to find that their relatives’ graves had not been disturbed.

Some, such as Linda Stephens, were unable to locate their loved ones’ graves at all. Stephens’ twin sons, Derrell and Terrell, died when they were 1 day old. She couldn’t afford a headstone for them, but since 1966 has been visiting the spot where they were buried. On Thursday, she found someone else’s headstone where she thought her two boys should have been. No maps or location records were available to the visitors Thursday.

Others, such as Aserine Murphy, whose two sons, daughter and husband are buried at Woodlawn, found graves in the right places. But Murphy, who brought flowers for Father’s Day, was dismayed to see that the headstones were covered with fresh earth. No cemetery or state officials were there to tell her why.

So, mourners like her left the graveyard, with its parched, brown grass and many gopher holes, with their questions unanswered.

State officials said they cannot discuss what forensic archeologists found during two months of digging up much of the northeastern part of the cemetery.

State officials did not come to the cemetery Thursday to assist families because an administrative judge ordered that only independent security be present, said Tracey Weatherby, spokeswoman for the Department of Consumer Affairs, which oversees the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau.

“We do care. We are concerned,” Weatherby said.

State officials are scheduled to present evidence about the cemetery at an administrative hearing in Los Angeles on Aug. 14, she added. At issue may be Evergreen Memorial Care Inc.’s license to operate Woodlawn.

Weatherby said state officials will also turn their evidence over to prosecutors in the Los Angeles district attorney’s office, which may file charges against the operator.

Mercer, a Los Angeles resident in her 50s, said she was happy to be able to see the graves of her son and daughter, although she fears the resting spots might have been disturbed.