Family sues funeral home after discovering veteran's remains were never buried at cemetery
MIDDLETOWN, New Jersey (WABC) -- A New Jersey funeral home is being sued after the family of a veteran who died more than 30 years ago say they were misled over how his remains were handled.
For more than three decades, Debbie Uraga has been visiting her father's gravesite at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Middletown.
But she only recently discovered he was never buried there. Instead his remains have been stored in a basement for years.
Uraga believed that when she visited the cemetery, she was paying respects to her mother Aileen, her brother George Jr., her sister Georleen, and her father George Jonas Sr. who died May 16, 1993.
Her father helped raise her three children and in turn, she took care of him for years as his health declined.
As it turns out, her father's remains were never buried.
"He's just sitting there for 31 years, and I was shocked like this was unbelievable," Uraga said.
Eyewitness News reached out to the John F. Pfleger funeral home, who handled the services and cremation, and they said in a statement that their attempts to reach next of kin remain unanswered:
We can assure you of this, the funeral arrangements and cremation services for Mr. Jonas were handled with the utmost care. Unfortunately, our files and the families' recollections of what happened over 30 years ago do not agree. Simply stated, the visitation was provided, the cremation occurred, and we have been in custody of Mr. Jonas' cremated remains up until they were turned over to the family at their request. All attempts by our funeral home to seek final disposition instructions from the Jonas Family Next of Kin remained un-answered until we attempted to provide an honorable burial of this man's cremated remains in our State's Veteran Cemetery.
Uraga said she was never contacted and believed her father was buried at the gravesite.
The family has since recovered the ashes from the funeral home and they have hired an attorney. The attorney for the family, Michael Shaw, released the following statement in response:
The funeral home said it perfectly - they don't have a recollection of what happened 30 years ago but my client and her family recall and are now reliving this. The funeral home represented to Ms. Uraga that it would coordinate cremation with Monmouth Memorial Park and interment of her father's cremated remains in the family plot in the weeks following cremation. A headstone was placed there and the cemetery even placed a Veteran's Placard - why would either entity do that if they didn't believe his cremains were buried there? It's nonsensical, unfortunate and heartbreaking anyone is attempting to shift blame to a woman who was misled for 30 years. Also, how many funeral home employees passed by and saw the boxed cremains sitting there since 1993?
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