7 On Your Side: Grieving mother says monument company never completed job

NEW YORK (WABC) -- A family fighting to get a headstone for their loved one needed help, and after waiting since last year, they turned to 7 On Your Side. And unfortunately, it wasn't a new problem for us, having dealt with the company in question before.

In fact, we helped a number of families dealing this company's false promises about where their missing memorials were. Then the monument maker closed up shop, but we had made one promise to a mom grieving a child that we weren't about to break.

"This was her when she went to the prom," Cynthia Rice said, showing off a picture of her beloved daughter.

It's been four years since Rice buried her first-born baby girl, Shamara "Missy" Rice.

"She passed in her sleep," she said. "She wasn't sick. She went to school that day."

Born with cerebral palsy, Shamara could never sit up or eat on her own, but she was always smiling.

"She was very happy," Rice said. "She was very smiley."

Every time she visits her daughter's grave, marked only with a fading photo and plastic lights, Cynthia says she knows her baby's not smiling now.

"I have no closure," she said. "I feel very angry."

It took the single mom since 2011 to save up for Shamara's headstone, and she finally paid Imbruglia Monuments off in full last fall. Yet she was still waiting for the memorial to be installed.

"He said when he was delivering it in October it fell off the truck and broke," she said.

The man with many excuses was Anthony Imbruglia, who we had previously confronted when three other grieving families of a World War II veteran, a father and grandfather, and a beloved aunt enlisted our help with their missing headstones after Imbruglia failed to deliver for years.

"I dropped the ball," he told us then. "I have no excuse."

And each finally got the resting place their loved ones deserved.

But Cynthia daughter was still waiting for hers, and the business had abruptly closed. When we tracked down Imbruglia, he insisted the customer still owed him another $1,000 for the foundation fee.

"I told him absolutely not," Rice said. "He was still trying to get money from me."

Once we pointed out she had already paid that fee, and the cemetery proved it with its records, things changed, and Imbruglia promised to have the stone set by the following morning.

And now, on her daughter's 22nd birthday, Shamara can finally smile from above.

"She always loved for it to be about her," Cynthia said. "She's a diva, so she knows her headstone is here."

The owner's wife told us her husband's business has been closed down because of financial problems, and she vows that all customer orders have been completed.

The big takeaway is to always pay a monument company by credit card or check, never cash, and if you can, in installments. Additionally, if you can, pay the monument's foundation fee directly to the cemetery and not through the monument company.