Buyer beware of Forest Park - The Woodlands Funeral Home & Cemetery

A Woodlands family grieving the loss of their 22-year old daughter killed by a reckless truck driver, is then tormented by Forest Park - The Woodlands Funeral Home & Cemetery's incompetence and insensitivity, according to the young woman's father, Joe Witcraft.

"Our 22-year old daughter was killed by a reckless truck driver, and then we had to deal with the following issues with Forest Park Funeral Home and Cemetery," said Joe Witcraft.

The following chronicles the events pertaining to the funeral service and burial of Jamie Witcraft...

1. Called day of our daughter’s funeral service and asked by the funeral home to bring a dress for our daughter, claiming that the one she was wearing was now wet. We decline the request.

2. Our daughter’s casket was placed in a mausoleum location temporarily until full payment was completed on her ground location. We found out later that the funeral home damaged the casket and ordered a new one and supposedly switched out the contents without our knowing this. Once we brought this information to the Owning Company SCI, Dignity lied to their parent company indicating they told us of the change. The only reason SCI found out was the purchase of the replacement casket three days before ours was taken out of the mausoleum and buried.

3. After full payment for the grounds was made, I asked when we could do the transfer. I was informed Tues, Wed, or Thurs. because management had to be present. I accepted Thursday, and later was told that was no longer available. I was frustrated and demanded they give me the Thursday they said was available, and whomever the manager was that could not attend, changed their plans to accommodate.

4. During the digging of the cemetery plot, the digger broke the sprinkler pvc line which was in all the plot areas.

5. After the casket was sealed in its vault and buried, the broke open sprinkler pvc lines flooded water into the casket area each time the sprinklers went off. One day, as I was cleaning around the mulch area, I stepped back onto the plot and my leg went in the wet ground two feet!

6. I brought to the attention of the funeral home that the headstone pots were not sealed like the others and asked to have them sealed. They were then sealed incorrectly at two different distances from the front edge.

7. I also brought to their attention... the bench which slid from its base did not have four cores for cremation that we paid for, because they placed the wrong bench at the location and they couldn’t remove the pots from the head stone. They had to re-order a whole new head stone, pots, and bench.

8. We had the funeral home and landscaper (Brickman) turn on the sprinklers in our area. Finding out numerous ones were broken, didn’t work, or were located in future plot areas. We asked them to relocate the sprinkler system properly.

9. During the holiday season a Santa Claus decoration placed at our daughter’s grave was stolen. 10. The funeral home provided us with a deed to the plot and the phone number on the deed was a cell phone number of an employee who no longer works there. We had to have the deed reissued with the proper corporate phone number on it.

"Our daughter was killed, put in a casket, hopefully transferred to a new casket, flooded in the ground, and her head stone and bench were replaced along with new sod," said Witcraft.

"There is no leadership at Forest Park. They only react to customer complaints, and in talking with other families, is numerous. They don’t care to know what happens in the cemetery or how to proactively resolve issues before they’re brought to the cemetery’s attention," he added.

"All I want to do is to sit with my daughter every day without worrying if she is buried there, and if the grounds are going to be properly maintained. If you have loved ones buried at Forest Park Cemetery in The Woodlands, and have not visited there recently, be sure to do so and verify your love ones are attended to. The pain is still going on since July 2015."