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LAYTON — It wasn’t what Danielle Espinoza expected to hear when she paid an unexpected visit to her grandfather’s gravesite on a plot of land just off Hill Field Road.
An unknown man who appeared to be a worker, according to Espinoza, told her they were “going to start digging the bodies up,” and they were going to move them in three days to make way for “condos.”
Espinoza had already been wondering why the gravestone belonging to her war veteran grandpa, Rafael Jaramillo, had a wooden marker and pink flag driven into the ground next to it and a fluorescent pink spray paint circle on the grass around it.
Then, she noticed the others, similarly marked.
“I just stood there and I was in shock,” Espinoza said. “It was scary to me.”
It turned out, the old cemetery that once faced bankruptcy is currently under contract to be sold, according to one current partial owner and the prospective buyer, but the matter is likely to take far longer than the three days the still-unknown man proclaimed.
“If it went perfect, it would be months and a lot of money,” said the buyer, Nathan Hale. “We’re very early in the process.”
Hale said he was currently in the middle of a 6-month “due diligence” period in which he was examining the feasibility of developing the property, which he said the current owners no longer have the money to maintain as a cemetery.
“Bottom line, if we can’t ensure that everyone is happy, we’ll move on." - Nathan Hale, buyer
He noted any relocation would have to be conducted with the guidance of multiple agencies, and he said he did not want to move forward if an acceptable solution could not be agreed upon by all parties, including the relatives of the 25 dead who remain at the 4,000 plot cemetery.
“Bottom line, if we can’t ensure that everyone is happy, we’ll move on,” he said. “We want to put them in cemeteries where they’d be appropriately honored.”
Hale said he was presently in discussions with two cemeteries that could eventually serve as relocation sites, and he said the current owners were compiling a list of next-of-kin family members to approach about the potential move.
“If it makes sense for them, then it could make sense for us,” Hale said. “I hope we can all be patient enough to see if it works and go from there.”
Assistant Layton City Attorney Steve Garside said applications for rezoning had been filed with the city within the past several weeks, but the city wasn’t likely to grant approval until the matter with the grave sites was completely resolved.
Jaramillo, who died in 1981, was a prisoner of war in the Korean conflict in the 1950s.
“He fought for his country—he lost his life for his country,” said Espinoza, noting that Jaramillo had ongoing troubles with shrapnel that eventually led to his premature death.
Espinoza said her grandmother, Jaramillo’s widow, wasn’t opposed to a move under the right circumstances, including expenses paid by the developer.
“He doesn’t deserve to be in a place like this,” she said, acknowledging that the cemetery was in a state of disrepair. “He deserves to be in Arlington (National) Cemetery in Washington, D.C.”
Hale said he believed a solution existed that could be a “win-win” for all involved.
“If my mom and dad were there, I would feel better about them being in a place that could be maintained,” he said.
Espinoza said all of the dead deserved to be honored properly.
“My grandpa deserved better than this,” she said.
Judith Rasmussen, the wife of partial property owner Josh Rasmussen, said her husband is a Vietnam veteran who suffered from the effects of Agent Orange and is sympathetic to Jaramillo’s situation.
Rasmussen said he had maintained the cemetery at his own expense and ability for the past 17 years, but health troubles and the financial responsibilities of managing the property have made the task increasingly difficult.
“We saw this as a solution so that all of these veterans could be better cared for,” she said. “He’s only trying to do the best for these people.”
