Dishonoring the dead?
Family: Disinterment of loved one violated their beliefs

Joseph Diaz and holds a photo of his brother Johnny Diaz while Elenacruz Estorga, Johnny's niece, sits next to him. Johnny Diaz, who died in April of 2007, was one of several people whose burial was moved by Ken Gaze and Associates at Sunset Memorial Park cemetery. — © 2008 Gallup Independent / Brian Leddy

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff writer

Second in a two-part series
GALLUP — When Johnny B. Diaz died on April 21, 2007 — his mother’s birthday — his grieving family came together to buy a burial plot and plan his funeral.

The loss was tough on the Diaz family, but they arranged to have Diaz’s favorite priest officiate at the funeral Mass, and they purchased two new cemetery plots, one for Diaz and one to be used later for his mother.

But family members say that just a little more than a month after Diaz’s funeral, they were stunned to learn from Sunset Memorial Park official Kenneth Gaze that the family had been sold plots that had been previously sold to someone else, and Diaz’s body would have to be disinterred and moved to another grave site.

“I told him we did not want Johnny moved,” recalled Diaz’s sister Regina Estorga. “It was against our beliefs. He told us we had no choice in the matter.”

In an emotional interview on Thursday, Estorga, her daughter Elenacruz Estorga, and her brother Joseph Diaz talked their family’s experience with Gaze and Sunset Memorial Park.

During part of the interview, Regina Estorga read from the extensive set of notes she has kept during the last 18 months.

As shocking as that news was and as much as the family wanted Diaz’s body to remain in the original plot, the family members said they agreed to a reburial. They said they started looking for new burial plots at the cemetery, and they said they even began considering purchasing a whole family plot in a new section of the cemetery. They claim they told Gaze the family wanted to be present for the disinterment and reburial, and they wanted the Very Rev. Lawrence O’Keefe to be present to bless the new grave.

It was during this time, they said, that Elenacruz Estorga visited the grave site. Although Johnny was her uncle, Elenacruz Estorga explained, they were very close and he was more like a father to her. During the cemetery visit, she noticed that Diaz’s grave site name tag had been removed.

Regina Estorga said when she contacted Gaze about the missing name tag, he told her he had already moved her brother’s casket. As upsetting as this news was, the family said they didn’t believe the casket had been disinterred and moved. Prior to her daughter’s visit, Regina Estorga explained, Elenacruz had placed a cigarette by the name tag on her uncle’s grave. Although the name tag was missing, the family saw no sign that the casket had been dug up, and the cigarette was still where Elenacruz had placed it.

“That cigarette should have been who knows where,” Regina Estorga said. The Diaz family believes the disinterment and reinterment happened sometime after that visit.

“We have pictures what the grave looked like before, after, and between,” she added.

Regina Estorga said Gaze told her “he had work to do” as an explanation for not honoring the family’s wishes to be present for the disinterment and reburial.

After it became clear that Diaz’s grave site had been disturbed, the family members said they weren’t sure if he was still buried at the first grave site, the second site with the name tag, or somewhere else. This particularly upset Diaz’s mother, they explained, because she worried she would pass away before her son’s new grave site was positively identified.

“It’s a lot of disrespect to him and my mother,” Joseph Diaz said of his family’s treatment.

Had they been allowed to be present when the casket was disinterred and moved, family members said, all the ensuing events of the last 18 months could have been avoided. “Sure it would be painful,” Regina Estorga said. “But not the nightmare that this has turned out to be.”

Joseph Diaz said he believes Gaze treated his family in a hostile manner, as if the Diaz family was in the wrong and not the victims. “He broke his word,” he said. “He broke our trust.”

Regina Estorga said Gaze blamed the doubled-sold plots on the sloppy record keeping of previous cemetery management, but she believes poor records don’t excuse his behavior to her family. “That has nothing to do with bad book work,” she said.

As a result, the Diaz family hired Ramah attorney William G. Stripp and filed a lawsuit against Gaze and Sunset Memorial Park in August 2007. Three other families have filed similar lawsuits.

When contacted, Gaze deferred comment to his attorney, Holly R. Harvey. She provided some general information about the four lawsuits but declined to discuss specific details of the cases since they are all ongoing legal cases.

Last month, with Stripp present as a witness, Diaz’s casket was disinterred again, it was opened so the witnesses could verify Diaz’s body was inside, and it was reburied in the second grave once more. Although the Diaz family is not happy with the second grave site, they said they did not ask for the casket to be moved to a third location because they felt that would be disrespectful to Diaz.

Regina Estorga said she realizes a newspaper article can not include all the details of her family’s experience in the case. However, she said if the case does move to a jury trial, she hopes all the details will come out in the court record.

She also said she hopes people understand that her brother was very loved by his family and didn’t deserve this treatment.

“My brother was not a John Doe,” she said. He had a family that loved him, she said, a mother, brothers, sister, and other family members that loved him. “He was not alone in this world,” she added.

Elenacruz Estorga agreed. When her uncle died in Flagstaff, Ariz., she said, her family traveled to Flagstaff to stay with the body, and they didn’t want to leave the body alone because of their love for Diaz. “That’s the kind of family he had,” she said. “I shouldn’t say had,” she added. “I should say has.”