USA. Arlington, Virginia. 2011. Kathryn Condon, director of Arlington National Cemetery. She came to the job following a
scandal in which the remains of thousands of soldiers were found to be buried in mislabeled or
incorrect graves. Remains have also been lost or discovered in cemetery landfills, and caskets
have been buried on top of one another. The scandal horrified many families, who fear that they
have been mourning at the wrong graves.
In a well-publicized case, Scott Warner drove to Arlington from Canton, Ohio, to confirm where
his son Heath was buried. There was no record of Heath at the funeral home where his remains
were allegedly kept before burial. The funeral itself had been closed casket, as Heath’s body
was badly mangled by a roadside bombing in Iraq. The cemetery staff had promised to disinter
the coffin and open it in front of Warner, but when he arrived they told him they had already
confirmed that his son was indeed buried in the right place. Warner insisted they open the
casket for him and he picked through the pieces of his decomposing son, looking for a tattoo on
his arm. He found the tattoo.