Grave error.
Family members who spent years grieving their beloved household matriarch at her Los Angeles burial website had been horrified to study they’d been visiting an empty grave the entire time as a result of a misplaced gravestone, in line with a lawsuit and experiences.
The household of the late Hasmik Demirchayn – who fled oppression from the Soviet Union within the Nineteen Eighties for a greater life within the US – spent the previous almost 4 years coming to grieve, pray, have fun birthdays and even put up a embellished Christmas tree at an empty plot that had a gravestone together with her title, in line with native experiences.
Marine, Hasmik’s center little one, has been overwhelmed with guilt and disgrace for visiting the unsuitable headstone, she tearfully recalled to NBC4 Los Angeles.
“When she handed, I assumed, ‘Not less than, now we have given her a peaceable, respectful place to relaxation.’ However seeing her memorial pill positioned on the unsuitable grave, it felt like shedding her over again,” the daughter mentioned. “We had been simply speaking to an empty spot.”
After Hasmik Demirchayn died of a coronary heart assault in 2021, her kids buried her in one of many plots that the household had bought in 2008 on the Hollywood Hills location of Forest Garden Memorial Park.
Since then, her kids have come to go to the gravesite and commemorate a lady they described to NBC Los Angeles because the “good mother.”
“For a 12 months, I used to be there each weekend, taking her flowers, and sitting and speaking to her,” Marine informed native station.
It wasn’t till this April when the youngsters needed to bury their father, who had been fortunately married to his spouse for a number of a long time, that they realized there had been a horrible mistake.
Chris, Hasmik’s son, informed KTLA Information that in his father’s funeral service, a mortician confessed to him that his mom’s gravestone was above an empty plot, whereas her physique was buried in a plot with no marker.
The headstone had been positioned in “area 1,” whereas the beloved matriarch was buried in “area 2,” one plot over to the suitable, in line with KTLA.
“It was an embarrassing second. It was a surprising second. It’s a violation of belief,” Chris mentioned, recalling the surprising dialog. “I really feel betrayed as a result of now we have been chatting with an empty plot.”
Regardless of the cemetery fixing the error and transferring the gravestone to the suitable burial spot, the household has filed a lawsuit within the hopes {that a} comparable mistake may be averted sooner or later.
The Demirchyan household sued Forest Garden Mortuary and the Forest Garden Memorial Park Affiliation for fraud, breach of contract, negligence and negligent infliction of emotional misery and is looking for compensatory and punitive damages, in line with a lawsuit obtained by PEOPLE.
“Whereas we respect Forest Garden for taking applicable motion to appropriate their error proper after they found it, it nonetheless is inexcusable as a result of this is able to not have come to mild if my shopper hadn’t suffered one other loss,” Rosie Zilifyan, the household’s lawyer, informed native shops.
Apologizing and fixing the error doesn’t take away the heartache, the household mentioned.
“They assume saying sorry and transferring it makes up for what was 4 years of mourning that we did, and we’re nonetheless grieving,” George Eskichyan, Hasmik’s grandson, informed KTLA. “This provides an additional layer of harm and ache.”
