PORTLAND, Oregon — Skyline Memorial Gardens, a cemetery in Northwest Portland, is suing a woman after it sold her the gravesite where she buried her son. Now, the company said it sold the burial site twice, first to another family, before selling it to Paula Tin Nyo, who buried her son Tyber Harrison there.
Harrison was hit by a car and killed in 2016, just two weeks past his 20th birthday. He was a college student in Florida when he died, and his family decided to cremate him.
As his mother, Tin Nyo, drove home after the ceremony, she didn't know if she could return to her life as it was before.
"I was just like, 'God I just wish that we could keep driving,'" Tin Nyo.
So soon after, she did just that — driving across the country with Harrison’s ashes before eventually landing in Portland. It was here that she decided upon a final resting place for her son.
"It was the best spot,” Tin Nyo said. “And that's what my son deserved."
But Skyline Cemetery recently filed a lawsuit against Tin Nyo, trying to compel her to move her son's grave. In court documents, Skyline said they first sold the plot in 2019 to another family, before then selling it again to Tin Nyo. If successful, the lawsuit would grant the land back to the first family.
In its complaint, Skyline said that it wanted to relocate Harrison's grave marker, a bench purchased by Tin Nyo, and a vault with some of his items inside, but "none of the items Skyline seeks to relocate contain human remains."
Skyline declined KGW's interview request. But in court documents, lawyers said the initial sale wasn’t recorded because there was high staff turnover at the time. They said that the general manager, office manager and cemetery administrator all resigned in July 2019.
Now Tin Nyo is worried other families may be in a similar situation. For months, Skyline tried to get Tin Nyo to move her son's vault, she said. They have offered her a refund or a new grave site.
"But that other family doesn't have a cremation vault, a memorial,” Tin Nyo said. “They haven't done — this isn't their sacred spot. It's just a transaction."
Throughout the past few months, Skyline has warned Tin Nyo that they would uproot Harrison’s burial themselves if she didn’t agree to the move, she said.
Now, a judge will decide who is the rightful owner of the burial site.