Beth Greene paid for interment rights at Montlawn Memorial Park in Raleigh back in 2013, expecting to one day rest beside her husband. Instead, in 2024, her family discovered that someone else's cremated remains had already been buried in one of the spaces she had purchased for her daughters more than a decade earlier.
Greene, along with her daughters Sarah and Lydia, had bought interment rights at the South Wilmington Street cemetery in 2013, according to WRAL. When the family later went to confirm the plot locations, they learned a person had been buried in the space set aside for the Greene daughters — and that a different family actually holds the legal burial rights to the ground the Greenes believed was theirs. Montlawn staff acknowledged the mistake, and the station reports the cemetery blamed faulty maps for the error.
Beth Greene told the station she is disappointed and afraid for other widows who might find themselves in a similar situation. Her daughter Lydia Greene said the family wants accountability to prevent similar incidents from happening to other families. The Greenes filed a 170-page consumer complaint over the matter, and the family says it has not heard from Montlawn staff or ownership since 2025 — with Beth Greene saying the family has not heard from a company or cemetery representative since last summer.
A Pattern That Predates the Greene Family's Case
The Montlawn mix-up is not an isolated incident at the Raleigh property. The same reporting found that Montlawn buried a person in another family's purchased plot in a separate case: Winfred Barnes, who died of a heart attack at work on Christmas Eve in 2014, was buried in a disputed plot that another customer had started paying for six months before his burial. Barnes's body was dug up five years after burial, after the cemetery had sold his interred plot to the other customer, and a court ultimately decided the 2019 dispute by court order, per Montlawn's own statement to the station.
Records obtained from North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson's office, as reported by WRAL, show Montlawn has received eight consumer complaints since 2020. Seven other complaint records contained billing complications and marker mistakes, including missing dates of death and incorrect grave placements. Customer comments in those records alluded to people being buried in incorrect plots, and the station notes a similar case in nearby Garner, where a man was exhumed in 2019 after his gravesite was double-sold.
Who Owns Montlawn, and Why Oversight Is Complicated
Montlawn Memorial Park is owned by Everstory Partners, a Florida-based cemetery company that owns and operates 58 operations across North Carolina and more than 400 cemeteries nationwide, spanning 23 states and Puerto Rico. The company was known as StoneMor Inc. before it rebranded as Everstory Partners in 2023 following its acquisition by private equity firm Axar Capital Management, according to PR Newswire. Industry trade outlet Funeral Director Daily has reported that Everstory is the second-largest cemetery owner and operator in North America by revenue, trailing only Service Corporation International.
Everstory Partners told WRAL it is aware of the Greene family's issue and will work with impacted families toward a resolution. The station reports the Greene family and Montlawn have worked to reach an acceptable resolution and have met with the other family — the one that holds rights to the disputed plot — three times, though Beth Greene said that other widow was reportedly never told the plot belonged to someone else.
Better Business Bureau data has revealed a broader pattern of negative complaints and reviews about Everstory Partners, and the company currently holds an F rating with the Better Business Bureau tied to unresolved disputes over cemetery maintenance and customer service. Customers elsewhere have complained about poor management experiences at Everstory cemeteries, including in Joliet, Illinois, where Patch reported that local officials and residents criticized the company over downed trees blocking cemetery access roads. A federal court memorandum from Pennsylvania also showed former employees suing Everstory Partners over allegations of sex discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliatory wrongful discharge.
The Legal Hurdles to Fixing a Grave Mistake
Correcting a burial error is not simple under North Carolina law. Commercial cemeteries in the state are regulated by the nine-member N.C. Cemetery Commission under Chapter 65, Article 9 of the North Carolina General Statutes, which gives the commission authority to inspect plot records and investigate written consumer grievances. Disinterring and reinterring remains requires 30 days' written notice to known next-of-kin, public newspaper notices, and county health department permits — or a court order from the Clerk of Superior Court if the matter is contested, under North Carolina General Statute § 65-106.
Those statutory requirements help explain why grave mix-ups like the one the Greene family is contesting can take months or years to sort out. Consumers facing unfulfilled pre-need contracts or damaged cemetery grounds in North Carolina can also file administrative complaints with the N.C. Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division, according to prior reporting from JoCo Report. For now, the Greene family says it is still waiting to hear from Montlawn or Everstory about how — or whether — the plot dispute will be resolved.
