Son says mother’s plot had someone else buried in it

POWELL COUNTY, Ky. (WTVQ) — Imagine going to bury your loved one in a plot they had purchased, only to find someone else buried there.

Brian Swango’s mom, Ruby, died this month but she made plans years before to be buried in the Stanton Cemetery. To be buried right beside her husband, Denzel Swango.

“That was her wishes I mean she was with my dad until the day he died,” says Swango. “That’s where she planned to be and that’s where she thought she was going to be.”

Swango says back in 1992 his mother bought a plot right beside his father. And he has the paper work to prove his mother purchased the plot.

But that wasn’t enough to save the space. So, how did this happen?

Patty Gordon, president of the Stanton Cemetery Association that only deals with the upkeep, says in this cemetery a lot of people don’t get deeds when they sell the lots.

She says the part of the cemetery where his father is buried was owned by Nannie Fryar.

“The individual that owns the land, sells the plot and they get the money from the plot,” says Gordon.

Paperwork and a check show that Mrs. Swango bought the lot beside her husband from Fryar.

But Fryar passed away and her daughters took over the land.

Gordon says they sold Mrs. Swango’s lot to another family in 1996.

So it seems the confusion has to do with the change in ownership.

But that is little comfort to Brian Swango.

“It’s very frustrating I don’t know what to do,” says Swango.

He couldn’t honor his mother’s wishes and had to bury her in a completely different cemetery all the way across the county.

“It’s a shame that she has to be where she’s at,”says Swango. “The whole situation it’s just a shame.”