BARTLETT, Tenn. — The state is calling in a company to figure out how many graves at the troubled Galilee Memorial Gardens have bodies in them and how many do not.
A recent report from David Kustoff, the special deputy receiver representing the state, shows the state hired Ground Penetrating Radar Systems Inc. to scan the property.
As WREG has previously reported, the cemetery is closed. Jamar Lambert took a plea deal last March.
Investigators said he buried bodies on someone else’s land and stacked them on top off each other in graves.
“We couldn’t go see her. We didn’t know what happened to her,” said Codarrius Joiner, whose mother, Peggy, died of cancer in 2013.
Joiner said his family finally got to visit her grave over the Memorial Day holiday. That is when the state opened up the cemetery for loved ones.
WREG told him about the report, in which the state announced it is hiring a company to physically scan the ground.
Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance Communications Director Kevin Walters explained the firm is, “going to be using a radar, a ground-penetrating radar to go across the entirety of Galilee Memorial Gardens to locate vacant grave spaces.”
Ground Penetrating Radar Systems Inc. will scan the approximately nine acres of land for about $8,600.
The project will take the company about 10 days, and the ground must be dry for the equipment to work correctly.
The state said it wants to fulfill as many contracts with grieving families as possible.
“Closure, that we know our mother’s still there, where she was buried at, and that we have the opportunity to go visit her burial site,” Joiner said.
Walters said he does not know the specific date the company will begin.
The report was filed in Davidson County Chancery Court.
