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Jury awards woman $3.5 million Odessan: Cemetery moved my husband BY DAVID J. LEE Odessa American When Estela Aragon-Hooper went to visit her husband’s grave in May 2003 what she found was a new sense of loss. In the place where her husband had previously been interred at Sunset Memorial Gardens was a freshly buried grave of someone else. “I checked with my children, with my preacher, with Wilson Funeral Home — they were all in agreement that he was not in the right place, that something was wrong,” Aragon-Hooper said Friday. “They moved him without ever saying anything; it’s the worst possible feeling,” she said. Eventually, she ended up at Sunset Memorial Gardens, which is owned by parent company Service Corporation International. “I asked about it, and they lied and lied and lied,” she said. “They told me I couldn’t have been in my right mind. I was wrong.” That led to a three-year fight, which ended up in Judge Bill McCoy’s 358th District Court. On Friday, an Ector County jury awarded Aragon-Hooper $3.5 million for mental anguish caused by the case. “Justice was given to us today,” she said. John Green, Aragon-Hooper’s attorney, said likewise. “Justice was served, and the jury felt that way,” he said. “The jury returned a verdict that’s just based on the facts of the case about what happened to this lady and her family.” Dick Holland of Midland, the attorney representing SCI, disagreed. “I appreciate the jury’s service, but I’m disappointed in what they found, personally,” he said. Efforts to reach representatives of SCI were unsuccessful Friday. Holland, however, said the company is looking at its future options in the case. “We’re looking at all our avenues, and that’s all I think I should say about that right now,” he said. Green said even if SCI appeals, he anticipates the appeals court holding up the jury’s decision. “I think Judge McCoy tried a case that will be affirmed,” he said. WHAT HAPPENED? When Osbaldo Aragon died April 11, 2003, Estela Aragon — who has since remarried — and her children, Christian, Erica, Rebecca and Stephen, bought plot 218-1 at Sunset Memorial Gardens in Odessa. According to court documents, Osbaldo Aragon was instead buried in plot 202-2. “The day of the funeral, I noticed it was a different spot, but I didn’t say anything,” Aragon-Hooper said. “I was exhausted. I was grieving. I’d taken care of someone in Hospice. I was tired. My family was tired. Everyone was tired.” After that, she put it out of her mind. Aragon-Hooper visited her husband’s grave for about a month. Then, one day she arrived to find someone else in the spot where her husband had been before. “It’s such a personal issue when you have a loved one who’s buried, you go to see them and they’re not there anymore,” she said. “Imagine how I felt when I realized my husband was gone; I didn’t know where my husband was,” she said. “And they said I wasn’t in my right mind.” Aragon-Hooper said her husband’s body had been moved to plot 218-1, where it originally was supposed to go. “They disinterred my husband without my permission and moved him to where he was supposed to be,” she said. But worse, she said she felt like she couldn’t be sure her husband was really in the new spot. In her mind, he could have still been in the old grave — or perhaps in neither place. “They had to exhume my husband’s grave in August 2005 to prove to me that he is where they said he is,” she said. AND NOW … Aragon-Hooper said she and her family have both been traumatized by the entire process. “They put my family through this for three years, and it’ll never be the same,” she said. “My youngest son is afraid I’ll die, and he won’t know where to bury me.” But, she did gain some hope with the jury’s verdict Friday, she said. “I know it’ll go into appeals, and I’ll never see it … But, this puts my faith back in things. When someone lies like this, and the system puts it right, it restores my faith,” she said. For now, Aragon-Hooper said she and her children would try to move forward. “We’ll try to put the pieces together,” she said. “I know my family will try to go on. We’ll begin one day at a time.” And while that happens, she has advice for others as they go through the loss of a loved one. “Be aware,” she said. “Have someone who cares about you and your family be with you at a time like this — someone who will be there on your behalf — not someone from the cemetery or someone from the doctors.” Even more, she said, “Take pictures. No, take video.”
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