7 News Belize

Funeral Frustration
posted (January 14, 2013)
Last week, 7News told you about undertaker David Coye who was upset with the fees the Belize City Council implemented in its takeover of Cemetery services.

Well tonight, we have another complaint from a family who is upset with City Hall. Last week, we were called out to CitCo's office to speak with Carol Goodin, sister-in-law of the late Zebedee Pitterson, Jr.

She was upset with the hike in fees for funeral spaces at the 13 mile's cemetery, but communication with Deputy Mayor Dion Leslie led her to hold back commenting to us on the issue. They were supposed to have worked out their issues.

Pitterson was to be buried today, but up until an hour before the funeral it still wasn't built. Well today, Goodin called us back to vent her frustration.

Here's how that conversation went. She asked to appear off camera:

Voice Of: Carol Goodin - Sister-in-law of Deceased
"Today we went to the burial site, no grave has been dug yet and no one is there to dig it. I've been there from 8 this morning until 12:35 when the people arrive to start to dig the space for the funeral which is at 2pm."

Daniel Ortiz
"As we speak they are digging the grave and they are making preparations at the church to have the funeral right?"

Voice Of: Carol Goodin - Sister-in-law of Deceased
"The man will go in a wet grave because nothing has started as yet. I have pictures to show. I call Mr. Leslie and he said from 8 o' clock he will get somebody there, 8-9-10-11 and until 12pm the people show up to work. I left from there 12:35 and the grave site just started to dig. Thursday we went to pay for the spot and the cost was $1,000 for the tomb. Friday we went back and it went to $1,475.00 from Thursday to Friday."

Daniel Ortiz
"Can you tell us, in your opinion you feel as though the City Council is handling this cemetery situation properly?"

Voice Of: Carol Goodin - Sister-in-law of Deceased
"No, I think they need to leave it to the undertakers, they are professionals in doing grave sites. If they can leave it to the undertaker and charge a fee for the space it would be much better because we need to get our dead in the grave and it's not been done as yet."

Goodin spoke to us this evening, and said that the family had to make the best of the situation: they buried Pitterson in that freshly built grave, which was not ready.

Deputy Mayor Leslie told us in an interview 2 weeks ago, that there were measures which were to be set in place to prevent this issue from taking place again. He said that there would be a mandatory 2-day period to allow for the proper building of each grave, which would be signed off on by the City Planner before they are allowed to be used for burals.

As you saw, the family claims that Leslie didn't deliver in this particular instance. Due to time constraints, we were unable to get comments from Leslie, but we will follow up on this story tomorrow.

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