By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

FUNERAL services at a local church have come under fire after a man discovered that his mother’s coffin had been removed from her grave and hidden in bushes.

The harrowing experience has shaken 65-year-old taxi driver and life-long member of Ebenezer Methodist Church Anthony Culmer to the core.

While the matter has been resolved by the church’s administration, with his mother’s coffin with her remains to be returned, Mr Culmer said the incident has left him questioning whether his family were the only ones suffering this type of ordeal.

On Wednesday, he recounted the drama and his search to locate his mother’s earthly remains that were taken from his family’s plot in the church’s cemetery.

“I am a member of the church for 65 years, that’s how long I’ve been alive. The family plot goes back to the 1950s. The anger of my mom’s remains just being cast aside,” he said.

“My mother’s box is not there, the woman is not resting in peace. This is where the anger comes in, and frustration, because the question is why was the box in the bush covered up?

“The problem is that the preparation to put George (Mr Culmer’s brother) in the grave, my mother’s coffin was removed and my brother’s coffin was removed. My mother’s coffin was taken out of the grave but then it was put in the back of the cemetery’s yard and covered up.”

Mr Culmer was alerted to the missing coffin while attending the funeral of his brother, George, on Saturday. George was buried at the Ebenezer Methodist Church’s cemetery in a family plot that contained his mother, Rosalie Evans, and brother Arthur Johnson.

While visiting the grave site before the funeral, Mr Culmer said he was approached by a man who frequented the cemetery who told him that his mother’s coffin had been removed and took him to where it had been hidden.

“One of the persons who basically lives in the cemetery, he would have helped the undertaker’s workman who came to prepare the grave,” he said.

“Apparently the worker didn’t get paid, there was a dispute pertaining to him and the man who was contracted to do the work so he then told me that the box was where it was in the back of the cemetery. He went and showed me where the box was.”

Mr Culmer said he brought his discovery to the attention of several church members on Sunday, and alerted church administrators to his discovery on Monday after he sought counsel at the Wulff Road police station. On Tuesday, a meeting was set up at the church hall with the undertaker, the grave digger, a police officer and the church administration.

However, Mr Culmer said his mother’s coffin was moved a second time, between Monday evening and Tuesday morning.

“The big question was asked of the grave digger, ‘where is my mother’s box and her remains in the box?’ He told us that he had it hidden in another empty grave in the cemetery which is covered up and he was prepared to put her body down in the grave which she came out of, because the grave is large enough to hold George. And there is space for another person to go on top.

Mr Culmer said: “But he didn’t spell that out to us before the funeral, nor did the funeral director because she depended on him. He let her down and then everybody got let down. It was hidden in the bush.”

According to the law, the same grave can be used again after seven years. Ms Evans was buried in 1982 and Mr Johnson in 1999.

Although the incident has been explained as a misunderstanding, Mr Culmer said he believes he may have stumbled upon a scheme to resell used coffins.

“When I went to George’s funeral,” he said, “I went to look at the grave before I went into the church and when I looked at the grave there wasn’t two boxes in the grave, there was only half of a crushed box which was Arthur.

“They crushed it mainly to use it as a scam, to say that both boxes were in the grave just crushed up and not telling the truth that the other box was hidden in the bush.”

Mr Culmer said: “He was hiding the box to most likely sell it over. See the casket in itself is one of those expensive boxes. It’s a $25,000 box, and then again it’s still in good shape. The question is why was the box in the bush covered up? Why is the box in the grave which he told the police where it is now? Where is the box?”

He added: “The question now is, is this the norm? Perhaps we may not be the only family who this might have happened to.”

In 2012, The Tribune published a series of articles investigating the funeral service industry and exposing the concerns of industry professionals over licensing and regulation.

Most professionals interviewed pointed to the failure of successive governments to institute any form of licensure for practitioners in the industry, and the failure of the industry to effectively regulate itself.

They expressed concern about a lack of regulation in the industry, particularly when it comes to the certification of workers who present themselves as professional embalmers, funeral directors and removal specialists.