(LEX 18) — In older cemeteries, some of the burials are decades, if not more than a century old.
So what happens when someone’s remains are found, and no one knows who it is?
It doesn’t appear there are any laws or regulations in place around what happens next.
At Sunset Memorial Gardens near the Franklin-Woodford county line, the question came up last fall.
The company that owns the cemetery now, Everstory, said that employees were probing a plot for potential sale last September when they discovered a casket that was unidentified. Everstory didn’t own the cemetery at the time the casket was located.
The company that did own the cemetery at the time, Park Lawn, declined to comment on the situation, but Everstory did speak to LEX 18 about it.
Everstory said that the remains were left in the grave they were found in and that the casket was not opened. Because there were no records of a burial there, the company said there is no way to identify the person.
We first learned about the presence of an unidentified casket from Julie Sharp, a former employee of the cemetery. She wasn’t working at the cemetery when the remains were discovered, but when she was hired a few months later, she heard rumblings of unidentified remains.
It was then she said she found someone marked in the cemetery logbook under the name “John Doe.” She began looking into what happened and eventually contacted us.
Sunset Memorial Gardens has had several corporate owners over the years. Any issues with record keeping that could have led to the unidentified remains that were found were inherited by Everstory and could have happened even before the prior owners.
Both the Franklin and Woodford county coroners said they were not contacted about unidentified remains being found at Sunset Memorial Gardens last September.
It appears cemeteries are not required to do anything to identify previously buried remains on their property, and it doesn’t appear they are required to report them to officials.
But Franklin County Coroner Will Harrod said that coroners are able to provide resources to help identify unknown remains, like the issuance of public notices.
“Obviously somebody at some point cared for this individual enough to either purchase them a grave, or maybe the person purchased the grave themself,” Harrod said.
While it doesn’t appear cemeteries are heavily regulated by law when it comes to records, Harrod said that legislation could be helpful.
“Maybe some death certificate changes on requiring certain info on the death certificate that you can reflect or coincide back with cemetery paperwork,” Harrod said.
