The parents of 6-month-old Jada Kai Hickman watched as her tiny white casket was lowered into the ground at Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery in Augusta. Now they’re alleging in a lawsuit that the cemetery operator and funeral home have lost her remains.
Kamaron Hickman and Fatima Nettles say staff from Williams Funeral Home of Augusta and SCI Shared Resources, the cemetery owner and operator, told them in 2023 that the remains of their daughter could not be found. Dirt from the grave site was offered as a consolation before the funeral and burial service providers went silent, according to the complaint filed Friday in Richmond County State Court.
“Plaintiffs will likely never know to what treatment the remains of their daughter were subjected,” the lawsuit states. “Her remains came to this disrespectful and undignified end because defendants, to whom plaintiffs entrusted with the duty of properly and respectfully handling and burying their daughter’s remains, buried the remains in the correct grave space but then subsequently surreptitiously exhumed the remains, or otherwise lost the remains, and are now unwilling or unable to tell plaintiffs where their daughter’s remains are currently located.”
Representatives for SCI and Williams Funeral Home did not immediately respond to phone and email inquiries about the case. A spokesperson for the cemetery company told reporters in January that staff were committed to working with the family to find a resolution.
That was after Hickman publicly posted a video on social media of him visiting the grave site to collect his daughter’s headstone. In the video, viewed 1.7 million times, Hickman shows the three burial plots he and Nettles purchased in 2001 after their baby died. She was supposed to be buried in the middle plot, he says in the video.
“The cemetery would have us believe that, because it’s been 20 years, it happens that everything that was buried in that casket has returned to the earth,” Hickman says in the video. “As a dad, that doesn’t make sense to me. I want some answers.”
Jada Kai Hickman was buried wearing clothes and shoes, the lawsuit states, adding that parts of her casket were metal.
In his January social media post, Hickman said she was buried with her favorite rattle toy. He said the offer of dirt from the grave site “really rubbed me the wrong way,” and the attempt to exhume her remains “turned into an absolute nightmare.”
“I know 23 years is a long time; I’ve made peace with God knowing her soul is with Him in a better place but now this,” Hickman wrote in the post. “It’s like the scar got ripped open and I’m 21 years old all over again. I just want to know where my daughter’s remains are. I pray this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
Hickman and Nettles’ attorney, Mark Nonni, did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the case.
The lawsuit explains that Hickman and Nettles were stationed in Germany with the U.S. Army when their daughter died in March 2001. They returned to Augusta, where they buried her and lived for several years until they divorced and moved away. Hickman now lives in Florida and Nettles is in Maryland.
The parents decided to exhume their daughter’s remains so she could be cremated and they could keep her ashes close, the lawsuit states. It says they began the process in August 2023, when they encountered initial pushback from the funeral home and cemetery company.
Hickman and Nettles said they sought and received assistance from the office of Augusta’s mayor in getting authorization for the exhumation, which was attempted in September 2023. They said the cemetery’s general manager told them that all three plots they bought were dug, but no remains were found.
In October 2023, a manager for the cemetery company said in an email to Hickman and Nettles that “due to the passage of time, we were unable to recover the remains of your daughter,” the lawsuit alleges.
“Since discovering that Jada Kai Hickman’s remains are currently not buried in her grave space, defendants have made little to no effort to locate, or otherwise determine what happened to, the remains, and defendants have been unresponsive to plaintiffs’ requests for information and assistance in that regard, thereby making this suit necessary,” the complaint says.
Hickman and Nettles’ claims include breach of contract, fraudulent conduct, negligence, mishandling of a corpse, interference with right of burial and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
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