“I don’t want my son moved,” said Lonnie Reynolds Sr. “He’s been through so much in life, so many ups and downs and everything, and now he can’t even rest because they want to dig him up again.”
The city wants to relocate the body because it made a clerical error when it sold the plot to the Reynolds family after another family had purchased it, Urbana officials said. Once the mistake was discovered, city officials reached out to Reynolds’ father, who had purchased the lot, to rectify the situation.
However, the family wasn’t notified until after Reynolds’ was buried, the elder Reynolds said, blaming the error on the city’s bad record keeping.
Reynolds Jr. committed suicide on March 6, after a long battle with depression, his father said. The elder Reynolds said he wants his son to be remembered as a loving and caring man who deserves to rest in peace.
The family has obtained legal counsel in hopes of preventing the city from removing the body from its original resting place.
Kerry Brugger, director of administration at the city of Urbana, said that the lot was purchased by another family in December and that a clerical error had occurred that led to the current situation.
He said that as of Friday, everything was on track to move Reynolds’ Jr. five spaces down. But, now the process has been delayed.
Brugger said this is the first time that something like this has happened over the past 12 years that he is aware of. He said as soon as the mistake was identified, a process was started to relocate Reynolds Jr. to a plot in the cemetery that was not already owned.
Reynolds Sr. had mentioned moving his son five spaces down if there wasn’t anything he could do to stop the exhumation. He said the city told him that he did not have any other option in terms of the exhumation.
That was before the process was delayed on Monday.
“As far as the way my beliefs are, when a person is put in the ground, that is their final resting spot. No matter what goes on, if they have had the dirt buried over the top of them, you do not mess with them,” Reynolds Sr. said.
Brugger said that the situation is complicated because the city has a contract with the other family, that they had bought the plot, in which Reynolds Jr. was laid to rest, and that family owns multiple plots in that part of the cemetery.
“This is just an unfortunate situation. We do empathize with the (Reynolds’) family,” Brugger said, noting that the city is looking into what caused the clerical issue.
He said that the city will rectify the situation and make adjustments going forward.
Reynolds Sr. said that he plans to continue to fight to not have his son moved. He said that he is willing to talk to the family that owns the plot and explain the situation as well as try to work something out with them.
However, Reynolds Sr. said that the city has not shared that family’s contact information with him.
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