83-year-old man alleges mismanagement at Orangeburg cemetery after wife dies

ORANGEBURG, S.C. (WIS) - Charles and Barbara Shuler were married for almost 50 years, and it was everything they’d dreamed of.

“Everybody that knew her liked her,” Charles said. “She was just a perfect woman. That’s all I can tell you. She was perfect.”

Barbara Shuler was always the savvy one in the relationship, and thinking ahead, she bought two burial plots at Crestlawn Memorial Gardens, just a short drive from their home. Barbara always wanted to be buried under a sycamore tree, with Charles by her side, near her family.

When she ed in May of last year, it hit Charles and his two children hard.

“I miss her phone calls,” Charles and Barbara’s daughter Robin Johnson said. “She’d call me all the time. So I struggle with that. I know my dad does, my brother does.”

Charles later realized something was wrong with where she was buried. The headstone marker he purchased for $5,000 had not yet arrived.

Then something even stranger happened.

“I found a picture of the monument, and whenever I looked at it, I was supposed to be the left side and wife’s on the right side,” Charles said. “Well on the left side where I’m supposed to be, another guy was buried there about a month ago.”

After a lack of answers and explanation from the cemetery, he called WIS to investigate.

“I think nobody cares,” Charles said. “I’ve asked four different managers there about the monument. None of them ever gave me a straight answer.”

It has now been 10 months, and Charles has yet to receive a headstone marker from the cemetery.

“It’s not complete,” Robin said. “Even though when it is complete, it’s always going to linger in the back of our mind because we love this person so much.”

Charles said the cemetery management kept giving him odd answers about why the marker had not yet been placed by his wife’s grave.

“One time they told me the plant blew up, and that’s what was the hold-up,” he said.

An employee who was recently brought in from out of state said that there is a backlog of orders due to COVID-19 and the sourcing of certain materials.

WIS called around to other cemeteries in the area, including one in Orangeburg, that said they can get markers in anywhere from 3 to 8 months.

WIS went with Charles and Robin to Crestlawn in March.

An employee showed the family a map of that particular garden, and appeared to be confused about the layout.

“It’s the cemetery’s job to know who goes where, and if they can’t do that, then I don’t know what to say,” Robin said. “They’re in the wrong business.”

That employee said the Shuler’s garden is numbered right to left instead of left to right, and due to “confusion” on either Charles’ part or the cemetery’s, Barbara was placed in what Charles claims was the wrong spot.

Charles did authorize the burial, the cemetery employee said.

The employee at the cemetery said Crestlawn is implementing policies to ensure there is no possibility someone could be buried in the wrong spot. Those policies and procedures include three separate sets of eyes, including family verification, reviewing the plot before a burial.

Crestlawn told the Shulers they have now rush-ordered a new marker, with the order of the names flipped.

According to the Shulers, they have been told that the new marker could take up to six months to arrive.

Charles is now faced with an eternity in a plot where he does not want to be.

“It wasn’t what I wanted, it wasn’t what she would’ve wanted, but I have no other choice, I don’t want to have her dug up and moved,” he said. “I wanted to be on the left because I’d be closer to her heart.”

Other families have similar complaints

Crestlawn Memorial Gardens is owned by Faithful Heritage Holdings, Inc., which is based out of Florida. According to business records, they own several cemeteries across the country, including another cemetery down the street in Orangeburg.

WIS spoke with Shadana Smalls, a former sales representative at Faithful Heritage Holdings (FHH), who said that the company lacks the training and staff to properly care for these cemeteries.

“There’s no intense training that is needed,” she said. “The average person just can’t walk off the street and go mark a burial spot. You really have to really know what you’re doing.”

Another Orangeburg family filed a lawsuit against Crestlawn and FHH in February, alleging a service for their loved one was held at the wrong burial chamber.

They then said the cemetery moved their loved one’s remains without telling the family.

“I do think there’s some issues with management, and I do think there’s been a lot of negligence, gross negligence,” Samantha Farlow-Moyd, an attorney suing Crestlawn, said. “And it’s happening in a situation where these people are in a very vulnerable position. I mean they are servicing people who are burying their loved ones. In both these cases, these are individuals burying people that they’ve been married to for at least 30 years.”

In its answer to the lawsuit, FHH attorneys wrote that “allegations in the plaintiff’s Complaint fail to allege facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action against them.”

Additionally, the company argued in court filings that there is not enough proof in the complaint, and asked that the lawsuit be dismissed.

The South Carolina Perpetual Care Cemetery Board, which regulates and inspects cemeteries, has issued three recent orders against cemeteries WIS News 10 found were owned by FHH ― Plantation Memorial Gardens and Belleville Memorial Gardens.

Two of those orders were against Plantation Memorial Gardens, which is in Moncks Corner. WIS WCSC spoke with one family who also said they discovered their loved one’s body was in the wrong grave.

Fines were issued against the cemeteries in the three recent orders.

Charles filed a complaint with the board in March.

He got a call from them this week, and they said they would be looking into this matter to determine if there are any violations.

WIS reached out to Faithful Heritage Holdings, Inc., and the company declined to comment.

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