Thousands of horrified family members converged upon the cemetery, looking for answers. To some, the disruption of a loved one’s remains ripped open the wounds of grief, and survivors felt as if they were experiencing the death and loss for the first time. More than 200 families planned to file a class-action lawsuit against the cemetery’s owners. According to lead attorney Paul Shuldiner, “There’s a lot of grief, bewilderment and anger” among the families. Understandably so.

What happened at Burr Oak Cemetery?
Burr Oak is ­– or was – the final resting place of approximately 100,000 people. It is a historic cemetery, where many prominent African Americans are buried, including Emmett Till, the 14-year-old whose lynching and torture in 1955 in Mississippi helped ignite the civil rights movement, as well as blues singers Dinah Washington and Willie Dixon, boxer Ezzard Charles, and several Negro League baseball players.

Four current and former cemetery employees, including the manager, have been charged with dismemberment of human bodies, a felony that carries a sentence of 6 to 30 years in prison upon conviction. At a news conference, Dart said he suspected that “irregularities” had occurred at the cemetery for at least four years and possibly much longer. He also warned that the desecration could involve many more bodies than the original estimate of 300.

Why did they do it? Greed, according to officials, who say the accused employees resold burial plots and split the money they made, approximately $300,000. To make room for the new burials, the cemetery workers allegedly excavated some caskets and dumped human remains and headstones in an unused part of the cemetery. In other cases the workers crushed caskets into the ground and buried new ones on top of them.

Families who want to know what happened to their loved one’s remains may be in for a long and frustrating wait. Members of FBI evidence-recovery teams, some of whom worked on the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing and the 9/11 crash of United Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, are sifting through evidence. According to FBI spokesman Ross Rice, it’s impossible to estimate how long the probe will take.

If there’s a hero in this story, it’s the cemetery worker, referred to as “Employee A” in court documents, who accidentally came upon evidence of the disturbed graves. Ignoring warnings from the exposed workers to keep his discovery to himself or risk losing his job, he told another coworker about what he’d seen, and that coworker reported the crime to the cemetery’s owners.

Sen. Jacobsen (who wants to be buried with his deceased cat Sam when the time comes), pointed out that the practice of burying humans with their pets is an ancient tradition dating to the Egyptian pharaohs. In Jacobsen’s view, the state has no business getting between him and Sam. “I’m tired of the nanny state worrying about me and my cat,” he said. “I assume there’s a lot of people out there with pets who understand the connection.”

Concessions and Restrictions Couldn’t Save Bill
SB 5063 would have allowed (but not required) cemeteries, upon written request, to bury human owners with their cremated pets. The pet’s remains could be placed in the burial plot before, after, or at the time of the owner’s passing.

Several concessions and restrictions were written into the bill. For example, an earlier version didn’t require that the pet be cremated and would have forced cemeteries to allow animals to be interred with their owners. In its final form, the bill limited allowable pets to cats and dogs and required that pet and owner be buried in the same plot.

Many cemetery owners opposed the legislation on the grounds that burying humans and animals together would violate the customs and traditions of some cultures and religions. According to Paul Elvig, former president of the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association, “The ultimate insult to a Muslim would be to bury a dog or a cat near or around a [human] burial grounds,” he said. Other cemetery owners worried about potential lost revenues if they agreed to bury humans and pets together.

Support Wasn’t Enough
As Jacobsen observed when he introduced the bill in January, nobody in the Legislature took the bill seriously. The idea did receive the support of People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, however, and Jacobsen received several emails from pet owners and families of deceased pet owners who wrote about their desire to be buried with their pets. In the end, the bill lacked the support to get to a vote.

With the demise of SB 5063, Florida remains the only state with an existing law allowing people to be interred with their deceased pets.

Even the most exclusive cemeteries offer affordable basic plots, with prices starting as low as $1,500, compared to the average cost of a burial plot in the U.S. (currently around $1,000). True, the cost of a private mausoleum can soar upwards of $1.5 million in the high-rent district, but in between there are many plots whose prices are well within reach.

Get to Know Your Neighbors
When you’re considering where you want to spend eternity, it helps to know who your neighbors will be. Following are some of the most expensive cemeteries in America and some of their noteworthy residents, according to Forbes magazine:

• Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California  – Stan Laurel, Lucille Ball, Gene Autry, Bette Davis, Liberace and John Ritter.
• Glenwood Cemetery in Houston, TX – Actress Gene Tierney, naturalist and author Royal Dixon, Texaco founder Joseph Cullinan and other Texas oilmen.
• Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park in Dallas, TX – Mickey Mantle, Tom Landry, U.S. Senator John Tower, and oilman H.L. Hunt.
• Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx, NY – Irving Berlin, George M. Cohan, Miles Davis and F.W. Woolworth.
• Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, NY – Danny Kaye, Tommy Dorsey, and Lou Gehrig.
• Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY – Leonard Bernstein, Joey Gallo, Albert Anastasia and other prominent mob figures.
• Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA – Oliver Wendell Holmes and Henry Cabot Lodge.

And there’s an added bonus when you choose a plot in one of these burial grounds: you don’t have to worry about the neighborhood deteriorating. Even in recessionary times, owners of plots in prestigious cemeteries are more inclined to hold onto their property rather than sell it for some quick cash.

And then there’s the downside – Hong Kong is crowded. At roughly 6,700 people per square mile, Hong Kong’s population density ranks third in the world. Hong Kong is so crowded, diners share tables in restaurants. So crowded, pedestrians seem to move in unison, streaming through the city like a giant river. So crowded, even the dead can’t find a place to rest.

Just to clarify, we’re not talking about traditional burials; Hong Kong moved away from in-ground burials long ago (although traditional burial is still an option in some cases – more on that later). No, we’re talking about cremated remains and the fact that Hong Kong is so crowded, securing a resting place for a cremation urn bearing a loved one’s ashes can take years.

Racing to meet demand
The magnitude of the problem was underscored on April 14. That’s the day the Hong Kong government began accepting applications for space in the nine-story Diamond Hill Columbarium, which houses 18,500 new niches. The response? Nearly 1,000 people stood in line outside the columbarium’s office on the first day of sales to submit their applications for the largest release of new niches in nearly a decade.

Trends indicate that the space crunch won’t end any time soon. The city’s annual death rate has doubled since 1970, and the entire funeral industry is scrambling to cope with the demand for services; 9,500 people are currently on the waiting list for a niche. And while the government has announced plans to open 37,000 new niches by 2012, that’s scarcely enough to accommodate the people who die in one year. Officials estimate that by 2016, there will only be niches for half the people who die each year.

A temporary solution to a permanent problem
Oh, and about that burial option we mentioned earlier? Only the wealthy need apply. Demand for burial space, what with the ongoing land shortage and rapidly aging population, has driven the price of a permanent plot to $30,000 or more. Or, a family can rent a temporary plot from the government for around $3,000 for 10 years. When the 10 years are up, the family can renew for 10 more . . . or not. If the family doesn’t renew, the remains will be exhumed and the plot yielded to someone else.

No word on what happens to the exhumed remains.