A New Jersey woman is suing the funeral home tasked with burying her father’s remains after learning his ashes instead sat collecting dust in the business’s basement for three decades.
Debbie Uraga, 69, and her family had unknowingly been visiting an empty gravesite at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Middletown for 31 years since her dad died in 1993, she told News 12.
Uraga had long believed that her father, George Jonas — a military veteran — was buried alongside her mother, sister, and brother in the family’s plot.
“I’d go see him on Father’s Day and his birthday – and even the VFW, because he was a vet, they would put the flag on the grave. It’s like we all thought he was there,” Uraga told the local outlet.
However, in June, she was contacted by a man with an organization that retrieves unclaimed veterans’ remains to give them proper burials. The man shockingly told her he found her father’s remains inside a box in the basement of John F. Pfleger Funeral Home.
The news was devastating to Uraga.
“It hurts a lot,” she said. “I thought he was there and it’s like it’s just unbelievable. My father should be in the cemetery with the rest of his family.”
Uraga says in 1993, the funeral home assured her that he father had been laid to rest in the cemetery with her family.
“They just said they agreed that they would bury him,” she said.
The family has now filed a lawsuit against Mount Olivet Cemetery and the John F. Pfleger Funeral Home to hold them accountable and ensure no other families will have to endure the heartbreak they have felt upon the discovery.
The owner of John F. Pfleger Funeral Home says Jonas’ cremation and services were handled with the utmost care and that they had tried contacting Uraga about the status of her father’s remains numerous times, according to WCBS.
“All attempts by our funeral home to seek final disposition instructions from the Jonas family’s next of kin remained unanswered until we attempted to provide an honorable burial of this man’s cremated remains in our state’s veteran cemetery,” a funeral home representative said in a statement to the station.
But Uraga disputed their claim.
“That’s false. Nobody ever contacted me,” she shot back.
Uraga said she only lives about five minutes from the funeral home and wasn’t hard to track down if they had attempted to reach her about her father’s remains.
The devastated daughter said she now has the box with her father’s remains, as well as the cremation certificate that has her name and address.
She hopes that now that she has her father’s remains back, he can finally be laid to rest properly.
“Finally, after 31 years, maybe he could rest,” Uraga told News 12.
“You know, like they say, ‘Rest in peace.’ But how is he resting in peace if he is in the basement?”
