A New Jersey woman is suing a funeral home after finding out her father was never buried, and his remains were kept in a basement for years.
After Debbie Uraga’s father, a veteran, died on 16 May 1993 due to health complications, she frequently visited his gravesite near her home, according to CBS News, doing so every year on his birthday and Father’s Day. Uraga, 69, assumed her father’s body was underground beneath his headstone – alongside her deceased mother, brother and sister.
But a man with an organization that gives honorable burials to veterans with unclaimed remains contacted Uraga in June on social media to tell her that her father’s remains were still in a box in the basement of a funeral home.
“How did he rest in peace for 31 years if he’s treated like nothing down in the basement?” Uraga told CBS.
The John F Pfleger funeral home was responsible for burying George Jonas at the Mount Olivet cemetery in Middletown, New Jersey. In response to allegations that it mishandled Jonas’s remains, the funeral home told ABC’s eyewitness news that the arrangements and cremation services “were handled with the utmost care”.
“Unfortunately, our files and the families’ recollections of what happened over 30 years ago do not agree,” it said. “Simply stated, the visitation was provided, the cremation occurred, and we have been in custody of Mr Jonas’s cremated remains up until they were turned over to the family at their request.”
The funeral home said all attempts to seek instructions for final disposition from the family went unanswered, until it attempted to bury Jonas’s cremated remains in the state’s veterans’ cemetery.
Uraga rebutted the funeral home’s claim that she was ever contacted. She is in possession of her father’s remains and the cremation certificate, which she told CBS features her name and address – indicating she lives mere minutes from the funeral home.
An attorney representing Jonas’s family, Michael Shaw, said in a statement to the Guardian that the situation is “heartbreaking” and they are now having to relive the death of Jonas.
Shaw said: “This is an egregious matter that resulted in Ms Uraga and her family unknowingly visiting what was purportedly her late father’s place of eternal rest and peace. Any closure and comfort my client was able to find by visiting the gravesite for 30 years was ripped away. To twist the knife, she was first made aware just two days before Father’s Day, when she planned to visit her beloved father. Ms Uraga is now forced to relive the grieving process three decades later. We look forward to holding accountable all those involved with any wrongdoing.”
