A Virginia widower who just laid his wife to rest says he’s devastated after a cemetery mistake meant she had to be disinterred and reburied. Another family is distraught because the first gravesite was in their family plot, where their child is buried.
On Sept. 29, Gregory Johnson and his family buried the family matriarch in Sunset Memorial Gardens in Fredericksburg. Denise Johnson had battled cancer for years before her death, but it didn’t stop her from her mission to feed homeless people.
But just days later, Gregory Johnson got a call telling him that his wife had been buried in the wrong place and her casket would have to be moved.
"It did a lot to my emotions, you know. I’m crying at night," Johnson said.
Get Philly local news, weather forecasts, sports and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Philadelphia newsletters.
"I’m trying to be strong for the family," he added. "Boy, oh boy, oh boy, and now I've got to go through this all over again."
The terrible mistake was discovered by another family, the Medinas, who had gone to visit their son’s grave on Sept. 29, a day before the sixth anniversary of his death at age 19.
"My husband had come home and told me that he thought that they had buried somebody in one of the plots that we own," Jill Medina said.
U.S. & World
Stories that affect your life across the U.S. and around the world.
He was right. Denise Johnson had been buried in a plot the Medinas purchased right next to their son for their future resting place.
"Losing a child is the hardest thing, and then going over there and seeing that somebody else had been buried in a plot that we had bought in order to be buried next to our son was just devastating," Jill Medina said.
She went to the cemetery office to report what had happened. She said the employees told her they didn’t keep any records and had no records.
Cemetery management then contacted Johnson to give him the news that his wife's casket would have to be moved. But for days, he heard nothing more, until Monday, when he and his sons went to the cemetery to watch as a new gravesite was prepared, with his wife's casket disinterred and reburied.
NBC Washington connected the two families.
"I feel really really horrible for the family," Medina said.
While Johnson is satisfied with the new burial site for his wife with space set aside for him and his sister-in-law someday, he wonders whether the cemetery should come up with some compensation for what they put the family through.
Jill Medina is contacting an attorney but says the followup should start with an apology from the company that owns Sunset Memorial Gardens.
A spokesperson for Everystory Partners confirms the Medinas' 2017 purchase was not properly recorded, leading to the plot being resold.
The spokesperson added: "We've been working with the families privately to come to a resolution and we offer our apology for any disturbance this has caused the families." She would not say whether either family would received compensation.
