Rats, Rodents Present in Opened, Uncared for Casket at Graveyard in Union County

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The New Jersey Consumer Affairs Department’s Cemetery Authority has been notified of a possible case of neglect that was discovered in a Union County cemetery on Sunday.

Residents, who were visiting family members at Evergreen Cemetary in Hillside on Sunday, were shocked to see caskets stacked up to seven deep with at least one of the coffins open and rodents with bodies in the coffin.

A woman who visited Evergreen Cemetery on Sunday said she visited the tomb to see if her grandmother was buried, but when she arrived she couldn’t believe what she saw.

According to the woman, management initially told her there were only five secured graves side by side, but after speaking to cemetery officials today, she discovered that they were actually stacking eight to ten caskets on top of each other.

“We tried to tell the manager that one of the caskets was open and a body was exposed, but the manager didn’t respond.”

When she was reached by phone today, a cemetery manager said she would not comment on the incident and then hung up.

According to the woman, the manager called her a few minutes after speaking with RLS Media and explained that the problem had been fixed and all of the caskets were properly placed in the floor.

It is not clear at this point who opened the coffin and for what purpose.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, funeral directors and cemetery managers described a drastic increase in demand that COVID-19 has not seen in decades. According to the New Jersey Department of Health, respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus infected 998,000 people in New Jersey and claimed the lives of 25,380 on Friday.