Service to be held for nearly 1,500 people whose remains went unclaimed in L.A. County
An interfaith burial service will be held Wednesday for nearly 1,500 people whose remains went unclaimed three years after they died in Los Angeles County.
The annual ceremony will be held at 10 a.m. at the county cemetery, at 1st and Lorena streets in Boyle Heights. It is open to the public.
The county plans to bury in a single mass grave the cremated remains of 1,495 people who died in 2014. It will be marked “2014.”
County officials wait three years between death and burial to give family members a chance to come forward.
Faith leaders from various backgrounds, including Jewish, Muslim and Christian traditions, will preside over the ceremony.
Los Angeles County has honored the lives of unclaimed dead in burial services since 1896.
Last year, the cremated remains of 1,430 people were buried.
Some of those whose remains are being buried were babies; others were older individuals who died in nursing homes or homeless people who died at hospitals.
To claim someone, call the Office of Decedent Affairs at (323) 409-7161 or email Estela Inouye at einouye@dhs.lacounty.gov.
Times reporter Jon Schleuss contributed to this report.
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