A Houston man is suing the cemetery where his wife was buried after her casket rose up from the ground during the massive floods in Texas.
Richard Lee buried his wife, Carolyn Joyce Fobbs-Lee, eight years ago at the Riceville Cemetery. KHOU reports that high waters caused the coffin containing her remains to rise to the surface last week. The casket traveled 150 feet and before finally stopping on a concrete hiking trail along the bayou.
Lee says he was told he'd have to pay a reburial fee before his wife could be laid to rest once again.
"Clearly something went wrong here," Lee's attorney Annie McAdams told the Houston Chronicle. "Bodies are not supposed to come up."
Carolyn's casket was interred in a sealed concrete vault so McAdams says this is something that shouldn't have happened anyway. An expert is examining the vault to determine if it was improperly sealed and lacked holes that would allow water to pass through during a flood.
Lee and his wife were married for 37 years before she died from lung disease in 2007. She was 57. The original burial cost Lee $11,000 and although a rival business, George Lewis Funeral Homes, has offered to rebury his wife for free, Lee wants her buried at Riceville Cemetery because that is their home church and they were married there.
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