Newark’s City Cemetery is the final resting place for 18,000 people – including the poor, unknown or unclaimed – but it looks like an abandoned lot.
A family member says the cemetery’s been forgotten, and it’s not the first time. She asked CBS News investigator Mahsa Saeidi to track down who’s in charge to help honor the dead.
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City Cemetery was illegally used as junkyard in 1990s
Anna Lascurain began searching for her grandfather’s gravesite in the late ’90s at the request of her mom, Elsie. Elsie wanted to transfer her father’s remains from the city’s cemetery to a private cemetery, but for years, Lascurain says they couldn’t even find the grounds.
“I got a hold of tax maps, and I matched the tax maps to City Cemetery … and then when we went there, it was heartbreaking,” Lascurain said. “Anything you can think of was just piled on top of this … Junk.”…