Trial Begins in Family’s Lawsuit Alleging Mortuary Misplaced Remains of San Diego Juneteenth Pioneer

The loved ones of Sidney Cooper Sr., warmly known as the “Mayor of Imperial Avenue,” recently discovered they had prayed over an empty grave for more than two decades.

That’s what an attorney representing the family told jurors, as he blamed the funeral home tasked with his burial, saying it had negligently misplaced his remains.

Opening statements were delivered Thursday afternoon in the civil case brought by Cooper’s children, who are suing the company that once operated Greenwood Memorial Park and Mortuary in Mountain View

Attorney Eric Dubin, who represents the Coopers, said the mishap was only discovered after Sidney’s wife, Thelma Cooper, died in March 2023. Sidney died in 2001.

The couple had planned on being buried together but once preparations for the joint burial were underway, it was discovered that Sidney’s body and casket was never buried in the plot the couple purchased in 1992.

Sidney Cooper’s casket was found later in 2023, in another location within the same cemetery. By that time, Dubin said the family already had been forced to bury Thelma Cooper alone, against her wishes.

Attorneys for SCI California Funeral Services, which previously owned Greenwood Memorial Park, are slated to give their opening statements to the jury on Monday.

Sidney is credited with helping promote the Juneteenth holiday throughout San Diego by hosting events and celebrations with his family. Dubin said he owned a barbershop and as part of his giving nature, would give free haircuts to senior citizens.

“The Coopers lived their life so well. They played by all the rules,” Dubin said. “And then to still get treated so horribly in his death.”

Dubin told jurors that the misplacement of Sidney’s remains happened because of failures in SCI’s safeguards for verifying grave locations and poorly drawn maps that made it easy for groundskeepers and other cemetery employees to make mistakes.

Dubin said after the funeral that the family chose not to watch the casket be lowered into the grave. A headstone was later placed there marking Sidney’s apparent gravesite; it featured a blank space for Thelma’s eventual, planned inclusion.

“They had the trust that SCI was going to put their dad in the right place,” Dubin said.