A nightmare gets worse: Daytona Beach cemetery mixes up two caskets
DAYTONA BEACH — Eleecia Smith was a mother of two grown children and grandmother to three kids. The 53-year-old Daytona Beach native was a certified nursing assistant, and she loved to cook, garden and decorate.
Kevin James, Jr., was a 34-year-old husband living a simple life, working at the post office and excited for his wife to give birth this spring.
Smith and James didn't know one another, but they have been linked by a string of tragic occurrences in recent weeks. They both died unexpectedly in January, and somehow they each wound up in the other's burial plot at Greenwood Cemetery in Daytona Beach.
Their families say they haven't received an explanation of how that happened, nor an apology. And they wonder if James' wife hadn't noticed after his burial service that her husband wasn't next to his great-grandmother's grave if anyone at the cemetery would have realized the mistake and put the caskets where they belonged.
Smith's and James' survivors hope they'll get some answers now that they've retained attorneys and are moving toward seeking damages. Their burial plots are less than 10 feet apart and in adjacent rows, but their families still want to know how their loved ones' remains got mixed up.
They say they've been traumatized, particularly by having to watch their gravesites dug up and their caskets moved around by heavy equipment just three days after they thought they had laid them to rest.
"You're almost reliving twice the pain and suffering," said James' father, Kevin James, Sr.
"It’s very disturbing. My heart hurts," said Smith's mother, Pamela Hall. "It’s like I had to wait and bury her all over again."
The cemetery sexton and other cemetery officials could not be reached for comment.
How did this happen?
Smith and Hall lived together, and the morning of Jan. 8 started for them like any other Monday. But as Hall was about to launch into her day, something went horribly wrong.
The 74-year-old found her daughter unconscious. Attempts to save her life failed, and she died at Halifax Health Medical Center, where she had been born in 1970.
A week later, on Jan. 16, Kevin James, Jr., died suddenly, and his family still isn't completely sure why.
A young man who hadn't even celebrated his 35th birthday yet, and a woman who should have had decades left on her life were suddenly gone.
On Jan. 27, they were both buried at Greenwood Cemetery. Their heartbroken families came to the graveyard just northeast of the Daytona State College campus and said their goodbyes.
Two hours after the graveside services, Alexis James went back to the cemetery to place more flowers at her husband's burial plot. Not long after she got there, she realized something was wrong.
With the crowd gone and tarps that had been covering nearby headstones removed, she saw for the first time that the headstone that should have been just to the left of her husband, where his great-grandmother Dollie Mae Williams had been buried since 2017, wasn't there. Her picture was even on the headstone, so it was impossible to miss.
She was baffled.
Since it was a Saturday, there was no one in the cemetery office. She managed to get a cemetery official on the phone, and she was told workers handling Kevin James, Jr.'s burial must have made a mistake.
Three days later, Alexis James got a call from the cemetery saying they wanted to let her know that her husband's casket was going to be moved to the correct burial plot. When she pulled into Greenwood Cemetery just a few minutes later, she was surprised to see the work had already started.
Caskets back above ground
The scene the young widow encountered was a lot to handle. Bulldozers had torn up the burial plots, and the caskets were on the ground in plain view.
"She's five or six months pregnant, and to go through that stress, to know they buried your husband in the wrong place," Kevin James, Sr., said.
The elder James, who's a local pastor, couldn't make it to the cemetery that morning, so he asked a friend to go and keep an eye on things.
Alexis James also called the police that morning "because she didn't want a confrontation, and she wanted it done right," her father-in-law said.
Police stayed at the White Street cemetery just off of International Speedway Boulevard from about 10:25 a.m. to 10:55 a.m. on Jan. 30, and then left, police department records show. The officers concluded the incident was a civil matter.
Kevin James, Sr., said legally, the cemetery should have gotten the approval of the state and the funeral directors to move the caskets. But he said, "We're not aware of that happening."
He believes the cemetery is responsible for the unusual gravesite swap. Funeral homes take the deceased to cemeteries, but it's up to officials at the graveyard to instruct them where a casket needs to go, he said.
A surreal morning
The friend Kevin James, Sr., asked to go to Greenwood for him on Jan. 30 also knows Smith's family, and the mutual friend let her relatives know what was happening at the small cemetery that day.
"I received a call and I just got dressed and ran to the cemetery to see what was happening," said Hall, Smith's mother. "When I got there, my daughter was exhumed, the other person was exhumed, and they had the caskets sitting on the ground. And of course I was delirious."
She said no one had asked for, much less received, her permission to do that.
"I think they were trying to cover it up, trying to get it done before anyone found out," Hall alleged.
Hall said she was there from about 10:30 a.m. until 2 p.m., when her daughter was finally placed where she was supposed to be, beside her father's grave. The grave of Ronald Hall is clearly marked with a large headstone, and should not have been missed.
She said one of the police officers at the graveyard that morning told her a cemetery official who had been in the office had just left.
"He got into his vehicle and left out the back gate," Hall said.
She said the directors of the two funeral homes that handled the services for her daughter and James came to the cemetery on Jan. 30, but she doesn't know what they discussed between themselves once they got there.
It's clear to Hall big mistakes were made after she paid $4,100 for the internment.
"I paid for a service that I didn’t get," she said.
'This has been too much'
The two families entangled in the grave mix-up maintain that the cemetery has yet to offer any information, explanation or apology.
"If I was going to get an apology, that would have been last week," Hall said on Feb. 8.
Kevin James, Sr., said it will be up to his daughter-in-law to decide whether their family seeks damages.
"More so, we're seeking that this doesn't happen to another family," he said. "This has been too much."
Hall hopes the disturbing mix-up results in changes at Greenwood Cemetery.
"Someone needs to be of assistance for a loved one," she said. "They are paying for a service. This service should be done."
The experience has broken her trust in Greenwood.
"I have other loved ones out there, and now I’m wondering if they are in their respective places," Hall said.
Searching for answers and accountability
Personal injury lawyer Raquel Levy, who is representing Hall, sent a letter to the cemetery on Jan. 31. She has yet to receive any sort of response.
"The cemetery's owner is unreachable, failing to answer or return any of our client's calls," Levy wrote in her short letter. "Rather than the cemetery being a place of comfort, this occurrence added extra trauma to our client who was already traumatized by her daughter's untimely death."
Levy, who is the owner and managing partner of Atlantic Law Center in Holly Hill, wrote in her letter that under Florida law, Greenwood Cemetery had 30 days to send her its insurance information including the limits of liability coverage and medical payments coverage.
"No parent should have to bury their child, much less endure further and unnecessary trauma for doing so," said Levy, who is representing Hall free of charge and often volunteers her services to champion human rights and animal rights.
Watching her daughter's casket being pulled back out of the ground without an explanation why was almost unbearable for Hall.
"We want answers," Levy said.
Levy said it's not the kind of case people usually pursue, "so there's not a lot of accountability." She plans to sue for negligent or intentional infliction of distress.
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When the James and Smith families go to the cemetery now, the loose white sand that covers their loved ones' gravesites is a constant reminder of their deepest hurt being dug up again.
As they stand in the quiet of the cemetery with a gentle breeze rushing past them, they hope to find calm and tranquility again.
Hall knows she can't get her daughter back, but she hopes to regain her peace of mind.
"I can't sleep at night," she said. "I try to do things to get my mind off it, but I can't get my mind off of this. It's very disturbing. I lost my daughter. That was already hurt. Now this is hurt on top of that."
You can reach Eileen at Eileen.Zaffiro@news-jrnl.com
Staff writer Frank Fernandez contributed to this report
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Two caskets mixed up at Greenwood Cemetery in Daytona Beach
