Funeral home, family battle over body theft

By Associated Press

DALLAS (AP) - With the theft of a Texas Tech University honors student's body from her grave still unsolved, relatives are accusing a funeral service and its corporate parent of negligence.

But attorneys for Restland Funeral Home and its corporate parent, Stewart Enterprises of New Orleans suggest that the lawsuit against them by Melinda Ann Lee's family is frivolous.

A motion for dismissal by the companies' attorneys is expected to be heard early next week.
"It's just a bizarre crime that we didn't perpetuate but which they are trying to hold us liable for," said Hubert Crouch, a Dallas attorney representing the funeral companies.

"We wanted to do everything we could to help them through a terrible thing, and now we're being sued," he said.

Miss Lee died Dec. 7, 1994, from injuries suffered in an Oct. 14 traffic accident involving a drunken driver in Lubbock.

Three days after her funeral, someone bored through a concrete vault and cut a hole in her coffin at Restland Memorial Park, between north Dallas and Richardson, authorities say.

A newspaper carrier found her nude corpse beside a rural road in far south Dallas three days later.
Attorneys for Restland and Stewart deny any lapse in security, saying that no one could reasonably have guarded against a crime that has no precedent in Dallas County and little elsewhere in the country.

Family members have hired attorneys, private investigators and a former Dallas police chief to press its view that the companies should have provided more security through routine patrols.

The body was reburied in an unmarked grave provided free by Restland. Dallas County sheriff's officials say the theft case remains open, but that they've run out of leads.

The family's pastor, who has acted as their spokesman throughout the ordeal, said he isn't sure why Don and Patsy Lee felt the need to file a lawsuit and face an emotionally draining trial.

"I'm guessing a part of this has to do with some kind of closure," the Rev. Byron Myrick said. "I know that they were very unhappy, dissatisfied, angry with the way the removal of Melinda's body was handled. I really don't know all the motivation for it other than that thing was very painful to them."