ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — 10 Tampa Bay is uncovering problems at a cemetery in south St. Petersburg. Many families are outraged over a lack of upkeep. We began looking into their claims but then got a call we weren’t expecting.
Virginia Morand is buried at Royal Palm Cemetery on 1st Ave South.
“My mother, wonderful person,” her daughter, Ernestine Cannon said. “In her final hours, she ended up with Covid at 88.”
Earlier this year her family found her ceramic picture, called a cameo, was cracked.
Tire marks from the cemetery tractor go right over the marker. When they called the cemetery, they were told they'd have to pay more than $1,000 for a whole new marker.
“I'd like to see them take responsibility,” she says. “When you pay for a plot, you're hoping that they keep it up.”
She reached out to 10 Tampa Bay for help and when we called the cemetery for their side, they left us a message.
“I wanted to call you,” the man who didn’t identify himself said. “There is a little discrepancy about the situation because the other cameos are in perfect condition.”
This is where the story takes a turn. Another employee at Royal Palm called us and said she was horrified by the dozens of other damaged or destroyed markers. She wants you to see the level of neglect for people's final resting place.
“I felt like in my heart that I needed to reach out that this cemetery needs help,” Jessica Adams said. She worked at the cemetery this past April.
Her job was to sell pre-need plots to family members of people buried there. But when she called families, she says they often were irate because markers were damaged or not even installed.
“And she started to cry, saying that she just wanted her mother's marker there,” she remembers about one family member. “She just wanted to be able to find where her mother was, that's all she wanted.”
It may be in one of the stacks of uninstalled markers inside the cemetery office. Adams shared pictures and videos with 10 Tampa Bay showing those markers, some with death dates visible from 2023.
She also showed us numerous grave sites with cameos missing, vases lopped off and headstones toppled over. Most shocking of all — bags of ashes of dead loved ones left throughout the office.
“There were roughly, I want to say at least six urns,” she says. “People's ashes sitting on top of the filing cabinets, just sitting there.”
After a month of working there, she says she was fed up and quit. We took these new claims back to cemetery management and its owner, Faithful Heritage Holdings.
We were promised a call back from corporate but it never came.
“My community deserves better,” she says, noting the cemetery has been in St. Pete for more than 100 years and is the resting place for many influential figures, including George “Dad” Gandy. “I feel that this cemetery deserves a lot better.”
And so does Virginia Morand, whose family still refuses to pay the cemetery to replace her damaged marker.
Faithful Heritage Holdings is based in Gainesville and has had complaints and lawsuits involving several other cemeteries across the country, including in North and South Carolina. In one case, they were fined over a lack of upkeep, and in another they were accused of taking money for a grave marker but not installing it.