JEFFERSON TOWNSHIP — Another family is speaking out against a local cemetery.
News Center 7 previously reported that a family said that Jeffersonview Cemetery told them different spots for where their mother is buried.
“It’s a shame we can’t come up here and spend time with her birthdays, holidays. It’s been seven years, it’s very emotional, very trying time,” Aaron Robinson previously told News Center 7.
Now, another family said that story sounded eerily familiar.
Daniel Beebe’s father died in November of 2016, and his burial at Jeffersonview was held a month later.
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Even during the graveside services, Daniel’s wife Jesika said she felt like something was off.
“We went to the cemetery and usually when they do graveside, they do it at the grave site. But this place, they had it off to the right-hand side underneath this green awning,” Jesika said.
After the brief services, Daniel was handed a piece of paper that stated where his father was buried.
When Daniel’s brother visited the grave, he was unable to find markers that indicated where their father could be.
“We just had to go based on a general area of where they said it would be at...there was nothing,” Jesika said.
Jesika said the family tried to get in contact with the cemetery but didn’t hear back until a year later.
A meeting was eventually set up between a cemetery staff member and Daniel’s family — but no one showed up, Jesika claims.
The family asked for a maker to be placed to help them find their father’s grave, but when it was placed Jesika said it was no more than a “piece of foil” with the father’s name scratched in.
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“I mean, we put our faith and trust in these guys and they don’t give anything back to us ... we try to go up there and meet with them, but we don’t get nothing back,” Daniel said.
Ultimately Daniel said he just wants his father and family to have peace.
“We deserve to have a proper resting place for him and we can’t even get that right now because of Jeffersonview,” Jesika said.
News Center 7 looked into property records for the cemetery.
A deed for the cemetery states that it has been owned by the Jeffersonview Cemetery Association since 1988.
Records from the county’s auditor’s office show missing tax payments in 2017 through 2020.
By the end of 2021, it owed more than $34,000 in property taxes, records show.
A tax lien was sold, meaning the cemetery had to pay those taxes to a third party, according to the Montgomery County Recorder’s Office.
Multiple people have reached out to News Center 7 on social media, noting their grievances with Jeffersonview.
“I had my husband buried here in November 2021 and we showed up for the burial and the grave wasn’t even dug! I had to watch them dig the grave, put him in the grave liner, and cover him up,” one viewer commented.
News Center 7 reached out to the cemetery’s lawyer, Kelvin Boddie, but has not heard back at the time of reporting.
We will continue following this story and update as new information becomes available.
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