Grave mistake: Buckeye can’t move unknown body in grave, judge says

Nancy Marshall’s mother and husband have both been buried in Buckeye’s Louis B. Hazelton Memorial Cemetery, and Nancy herself has planned on — when the time comes — resting between her two loved ones in the plot she bought.

There’s just one problem. An unknown corpse has taken her spot. 

It’s unclear how or when the mystery body came to be interred, as the cemetery’s officials have been unable to find records related to the burial. As such, the city has proposed (and Marshall has agreed) it would be best to figure out what’s going on by removing the body and going from there. But on Dec. 2, a Maricopa County judge rejected a request by Marshall and the city to allow the out-of-place remains to be disinterred — making it unclear what happens next in the cemeterial saga.

John O’Halloran, the deputy director of communications for the city of Buckeye, declined to comment on what the city and cemetery plan to do next. Marshall’s lawyer, Curtis Ensign, did not respond to numerous inquiries from Phoenix New Times.

Marshall on Aug. 4 filed a lawsuit to remedy the situation, alleging the town had breached its contract with her and committed negligence by allowing someone else to be buried in the plot she bought. She asked Warner to rule that Buckeye “is allowing a continuing trespass to be made” on her property and to order the city “to take all action necessary to remove the body” from her burial plot.

What’s also concerning is that the case of the unaccounted for body in the ground is that there are a lot more. The city said in a Nov. 11 court filing that Marshall purchased the space in 2008, but in the spring of 2022 Buckeye officials had a radar survey of all plots conducted. The results showed that there were “several unmarked burials for which no records existed,” and while the city worked to identify families who were affected and set records straight, about 2% of cases were unresolved as of July 2025. Ensign and Marshall claimed the count is about 80 corpses. O’Halloran did not reply to a request for confirmation. 

The Louis B. Hazelton Memorial Cemetery was founded in 1938 by the American Legion Hazelton-Butler Post 53 and transferred to Buckeye’s ownership in 1947. According to its website, the cemetery is “reaching capacity in the original sections of the cemetery” and plots in four sections – including Section B, where Marshall purchased her family’s plots – “are no longer available for purchase by the general public.”

Arizona law is unclear

Marshall learned of this grave fiasco in September 2024. The city said it offered Marshall several options, including giving her a refund, allowing her to take the plot at the foot of where her husband is buried or moving her husband to a spot where they could be adjacent — all of which she rejected. 

In that same filing, the city asked the court to authorize the unearthing of the unknown corpse, citing several Arizona laws.

The law states that only certain people — outlined in a list of 10 familial or social relations — can authorize the disinterment of a body. After that, the law is vague, saying that “any other person who has the authority” to disinter a body may do so. The only other official named in Arizona law with the authority to unearth a corpse is the county medical examiner. The essential problem is that the law doesn’t appear to account for cases in which the identity of the buried corpse is unknown.

However, Arizona law allows the state to grant a permit to disinter human remains via a court order, if a member of the dead person’s family consents. The same statute also says that a permit is not required if relocation occurs in the same cemetery for “ordinary relocation or for reasons of internal management of the cemetery,” meaning the Buckeye cemetery may have the authority to move the remains.

The cemetery’s officials don’t seem to want to take that chance, calling a potential court order “the only lawful mechanism available to permit disinterment and relocation of the unknown remains.” They asked the court to authorize the removal and claimed they had made every reasonable effort to avoid the removal of ‘dem bones. 

“The City has conducted extensive research, reviewed all available records, and made every reasonable effort to identify the remains, but these efforts have been unsuccessful,” the filing reads. A week later, Marshall and Ensign said they had no objection.

Then — plot twist. Judge Randall Warner argued that the court has no authority to make a judgement on whether a body should be disinterred based on current laws.

“Absent a statutory standard, the Court has no basis for deciding when to order buried remains disinterred and relocated,” Warner wrote. “The statutes cannot be construed to give judges unfettered discretion to order remains disinterred whenever they think the pros outweigh the cons.”

In a quizzical, uncertain tone, Warner also raised questions about whether the mysterious person’s surviving family would object, or if it even matters, and asked whether the court should be required to do more work in identifying the remains before authorizing their removal.

“These are policy considerations the Court is ill-equipped to make,” Warner said.

What happens next is uncertain. So far, no one has appealed Warner’s ruling and the cemetery has offered no clue as to its next move. And this is not to even mention the odd fact that there may be 80 or so unaccounted-for bodies in the ground.