LIZELLA, Ga. — One Macon family just wants to know where their son is buried in a Lizella cemetery.
Ala’ya Ballard’s brother passed way in 2018 and was buried at The Cherry Blossom Cemetery. Ballard went to the cemetery last Saturday, and noticed someone was buried in her brother's plot.
“Me and my mom was sitting down talking and she said, 'I wanna go and see my son.' So I told her we can go,” she said. “When I came out here, when we got out of the car, we walked here and just stood here in shock, knowing this is where he's buried at [and] it's somebody else here.”
She says she called the Bentley and Sons funeral home and they said her brother was actually buried in another plot. The plots she heard were in B and C but she says her brother was buried in M. After looking at the documents, it says he was buried in M.
“For them to tell me that he was buried over there by the pond, for them to tell me that he was up on top of the hill - like, I know this is where my brother was buried,” she said.
Ballard says six years ago, she saw her brother buried by a tree.
She has photos and shells and fragments of the vases they left there.
But the grounds workers told her he was on the opposite side of the cemetery.
13WMAZ contacted Bentley and Sons, but they refused to comment.
Their attorney Sam Alderman sent a statement saying they are looking into the discrepancy, though Bentley categorically denies burying multiple bodies in the same spot.
Ballard says she and her family just want answers.