The family of the man who started Juneteenth celebrations in San Diego says they've been visiting an empty grave for 22 years. Sidney Cooper's body and casket are missing from his plot at Greenwood Memorial Park and Mortuary, something his family learned in March when the cemetery opened Lot 319 so that Cooper's wife, Thelma, could be buried alongside him. "Sidney Cooper is still lost as we speak," says an attorney for the family, which filed a lawsuit against the cemetery and its parent company on Friday, per KFMB. "They don't know where he is to reunite this beautiful couple in their eternal rest."
The family held the annual Cooper Family Juneteenth Celebration in southeast San Diego on Saturday but says there was a cloud over the festivities as the body of the businessman who started the celebration with his own money more than 50 years ago remained lost. While at the event, one of Cooper's children described the loss of her father's remains "as losing her father for a second time," family attorney Annee Della Donna tells the Washington Post. "This is unimaginable, and they can't believe this is real. It's something you think you would see in a movie," an unnamed attorney representing the family tells KFMB.
Greenwood Memorial Park and Mortuary faces Imperial Avenue, which was important to Cooper as he was known as the unofficial mayor of the area, where he ran a barber shop and produce store before his death in April 2001. A cemetery rep says the placement occurred "under previous ownership and management," per the Post. "Our hope is to reunite the loved ones as intended as soon as possible," the rep adds. An underground probe has detected a casket in another plot that should be empty, the AP reports. The family, accusing the cemetery's current and former owners of negligence and inflicting emotional distress, hopes the body will be exhumed for DNA testing. (More San Diego stories.)
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