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Woman Sues Cemetery, Says Husband's Parents Had His Body Moved

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Adam J. and Priscilla Kellerman-Pate had been married about eight weeks before Adam died in a crash.

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By LISA A. DAVIS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 12, 2008

Updated: 06/12/2008 02:19 pm

NEW PORT RICHEY - NEAdam J. and Priscilla Kellerman-Pate had been married about eight weeks when they were traveling through Birmingham, Ala., on a church mission and the tire blew out on their van.

The van overturned and two of the six passengers died. Adam Kellerman-Pate was one of them. Priscilla, whose last name now is Mellette, was seriously injured.

Six years later, the family is in a legal dispute over what became of Kellerman-Pate's body. Priscilla Mellette has hired a lawyer, Tom Carey of Clearwater, who filed a lawsuit today against the cemetery he said removed the body without his client's knowledge or consent at the request of her husband's family in Texas.

"It is our position that what the cemetery did was unlawful and wrong, including morally wrong," Carey said. "They should have at least contacted Priscilla. It was all done in the shadows. It was all done secretly."

The cemetery, Trinity Memorial Gardens, said it would have no comment on the matter. The lawsuit, filed in Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court, seeks monetary damages of more than $15,000.

After memorial services for their son in Texas, Kellerman-Pate's parents had his body shipped to Florida. He was buried Aug. 10, 2002, at the New Port Richey cemetery, at 12609 Memorial Drive, according to the lawsuit.

In November, Mellette started getting letters from her late husband's family asking her to grant them permission to have his body exhumed and buried in Jasper, Texas, a civil complaint states.

They thought Mellette, 27, had moved on with her life, so they wanted his grave close to home. Mellette said no.

In January, Mellette called cemetery staff to warn them about what the family wanted to do. When she checked with the cemetery in February, she heard something she didn't expect.

"They said, "His body's already been exhumed,' " Mellette said at a news conference today. "And they said I didn't have any rights, even though I was his wife."

That's wrong, Carey said.

"The law in Florida is clear: Once a person marries, all legal rights transfer to the spouse," he said. "And possessory rights to the deceased are included in those rights."

Mellette, who grew up in Tampa and teaches science at Wharton High School, said she went to the cemetery to verify what she had been told and saw new sod had been placed on her husband's plot, with the headstone still in place.

Had she not been told of the body's removal, she might never have known, Mellette said.

"I don't know what their intentions were, honestly," said Mellette, her emotions in check as she told her story. "But eventually new grass would have grown back in, and you would never know, I'm sure."

Mellette said she met her husband through a Christian ministry. She said she would like his body returned but likely would not pursue the matter in court.

"I know the strife and the tension it could cause for the rest of my life," she said.

That she had remarried in December 2005 and moved on with her life is irrelevant, Mellette said.

"You still love that person, no matter how many years pass or how your life changes," she said. "You're always going to love that person. That just doesn't go away."

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