Thelma Cooper lived a long, productive life. She had four children. She and her husband, the late Sidney Cooper, Sr. made a name for themselves in San Diego by helping others and founding the city's first Juneteenth celebration.
Sidney Cooper was known as a pillar of San Diego’s black community. He was often referred to as “the Mayor of Imperial Avenue,” where he owned a popular barber shop.
Mrs. Cooper died in March of 2023 at the age of 92. Her remains were to be placed in the same plot where her husband was buried 22 years ago.
The two would be reunited in death — or so they thought.
One day before Mrs. Cooper’s funeral, one of her three daughters, Lana Cooper-Jones, got a phone call from Greenwood Memorial Park.
Get Tri-state area news delivered to your inbox. Sign up for NBC New York's News Headlines newsletter.
“They told me they opened the gravesite and told me my father was not there. I was absolutely devastated,” she told NBC 7, adding, “They asked me, did I want to hold my mother’s body until they located my father.”
The family was outraged, but willing to work with the cemetery operators to resolve the situation and get her father’s body returned to his rightful spot.
“They told us in the beginning that they knew where he was but he was in another family’s plot and they would need to talk to the family before they could dig him up,” said another sister, Shelley Cooper-Ashford.
She told NBC 7 she’s worried her father’s body will never be found.
Family members like cousin Amani Miller told NBC 7 they got the runaround.
“He’s here, he’s there, we don’t know where he’s at. We found him. Good Lord, how do we know now?” Miller said.
A month after their mother’s burial, the Cooper’s adult children got another shock.
“My mother’s grave was not closed,” said Cooper-Jones. There were sheets of plywood covering the hole with her mother’s casket inside.
“It was raining. I was heartbroken. I cried at the gravesite, heartbroken,” Cooper-Jones said.
Cooper-Jones said she checked her mother’s records, and the paperwork surrounding the burial site looked different from the documents the cemetery operators had shown her.
That was when the Cooper children decided to hire an attorney. A civil lawsuit was filed in San Diego County Superior Court on Friday. It claims, among other things, that Greenwood Memorial Park was negligent, and that it intentionally inflicted emotional distress on the Cooper family.
Attorney Eric Dubin filed the case. He told NBC 7 bodies will need to be exhumed and DNA testing done to reassure the family that any remains found are those of Sidney Cooper.
A spokesperson for Greenwood Memorial Park told NBC 7 that the company has not yet been served with the lawsuit. The spokesperson offered this brief statement: “Greenwood Memorial Park and Mortuary has proudly and dutifully served families and the San Diego Community with care for over 300 years. While the placement of this family’s loved one occurred over 20 years ago under previous ownership and management, we recently discovered an issue with placement and are diligently working to confirm the placement of the loved one. Our hope is to reunite the loved ones as intended as soon as possible.”
“That’s bull,” said Cooper-Ashford. “They have not diligently worked with us at all.“
“This has been the hardest three months of our lives,” said Cooper-Jones. “You can’t believe this is real.”
