Personnel from Ground Penetrating Radar Systems Inc. were able to perform some scans of Galilee Memorial Gardens in Bartlett on Feb. 2 before the morning’s storms descended.
The work will help the state determine where empty burial plots are. People who pre-purchased plots before the cemetery was closed in January 2014 are eligible for burial on the grounds if enough empty spaces are identified.
The radar equipment doesn’t work correctly when the ground is wet, so last Tuesday’s torrential rainfall meant the scanning was interrupted.
The company has been hired to scan the entire grounds of approximately nine acres at a cost of about $8,600. The scan is expected to take a total of about 10 days.
Galilee made headlines in 2013 and 2014 over allegations of the owner’s land theft to bury bodies, multiple bodies being buried in the same plot, and haphazard or missing records about where bodies were placed. In March of 2015, owner Jemar Lambert pleaded guilty in a deal that left him with 10 years’ probation. He still faces costly class-action civil lawsuits.
