Troubles Followed Them to the Grave

LAS VEGAS (CN) - A funeral home mistakenly buried a woman's sister in the same plot as her husband and concealed the mistake for years, Las Vegas resident Sandra Magro claims in court.

Magro and her family bought three adjacent burial plots in the Paradise Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Las Vegas, intending Magro to be buried in the same plot as her husband, with her mother next to them and her sister on the other side of her mother.

Magro's mother, Saddie Gallo, properly was buried in her plot after passing on in 1992. Her husband, Edward Milano, was next to be buried in his proper location in 1996, and Magro paid have a custom two-person headstone bearing her and her husband's names placed on the gravesite.

But when Magro's sister, Marie Varone, died in 1999, Magro says, "due to a reckless and egregious error," funeral director Davis Funeral Home and Memorial Park accidentally buried her sister in the same plot as Magro's husband.

Magro says her family did not learn of the error until after Magro's brother, Michael Varone, died on Nov. 27, 2013, and she asked that he be buried in the same plot as their sister.

Magro says her request to bury her brother with their sister "threatened to reveal the egregious error" made years earlier and that Davis Funeral Home representatives "made intentional efforts to conceal that Sandra's sister Marie was improperly buried in the wrong location and at some point removed the inscribed headstone" from her husband's grave.

To conceal the mistake, Magro says, Davis Funeral Home representative Todd Noecker visited her home on Dec. 11, 2013, and tried to persuade her "not to follow through with her possible intentions of burying her brother within the family's reserved spaces."

Magro says she "confronted" Noecker and asked what happened to the missing headstone from her husband's gravesite. Instead of admitting the mistake, Magro says, Noecker "callously attempted to deceive" her by "telling her that the headstone did not exist and further alleged that a dual headstone bearing Sandra's and Edward Milano's names was never created."

Magro pressed Noecker for the truth, and says he eventually admitted to the burial mixup and then "cruelly attempted to obtain a release from liability."

Magro says Noecker offered to move her sister's body to the correct location and bury her brother free of charge if she signed a liability waiver, then refused to do anything when she would not sign the waiver.

In her Monday lawsuit, Magro accused Davis Funeral Home and its parent company, Alderwoods, of negligence, infliction of emotional distress, elder abuse and exploitation, in Clark County District Court.

She seeks punitive damages, fees and costs.

She is represented by Dennis M. Prince.

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