Cremated remains of 107 unclaimed bodies buried in Lake Charles Cemetery

LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) – It was a quiet and cloudy morning at Consolata Cemetery where Calcasieu Parish Coroner’s Office employees and a local funeral home owner prepared to take 107 people to their final resting place.

Prayers and blessings were said, and the cremated remains were carefully placed in a crypt at the Consolata Mausoleum.

“Often people find someone in their attic or in the cremains left there when they bought a house, and they bring it to us. We had a hospital turn an urn to us. We just collect them over time for different reasons,” said Megan LeBoeuf, the coroner’s chief investigator.

In this group, all have been identified except one Jane Doe. LeBoeuf considers it an honor to give them a final resting place.

“Even when you see them over the years that I worked in the coroner’s office, just in a closet, it makes you a little sad. Everyone deserves to have a proper burial at some point,” LeBouef said.

Among the boxes of cremated remains, or cremains, was a small urn. The coroner’s office said it could contain a baby’s ashes or be just a keepsake.

Zeb Johnson, a former coroner’s office investigator and funeral home owner, believes they all came from families.

“These people we buried today have a family or had a family somewhere. Whatever their circumstances during their death, we simply believe they deserve a Christian burial. This is our way of saying, ‘We’re going to give you a Christian burial no matter what your status was in life,’” Johnson said.

Johnson is donating the cremation services so the coroner’s office doesn’t have to cover the costs. The coroner’s office buried the unclaimed bodies, but it became too expensive.