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It’s been nearly a year since human remains were found, unexpectedly, during a routine burial process at the Lafayette Cemetery — a discovery that prompted the city to temporarily halt casket burials at the site. State Archaeologist Holly Norton has since found additional evidence of disrupted burials, and she says there could be more. The situation has been emotionally fraught for people who still own plots at the cemetery. About “150 families or individuals” still hold spots, according to the city.

Norton recommended in May that the cemetery be shut down to casket burials “permanently,” but city leaders have not voted to do so, amid objections from the Lafayette community.

The Lafayette City Council in June created a subcommittee working to find a course of action that upsets the fewest people — despite the city having sold plots past the number that now appear available at the cemetery. Some plot holders had planned to be buried there, in caskets, next to loved ones.

Months of discussion surrounding the topic have led up to a meeting set for July 21, where the city is expected to present options for plot holders going forward.

But how the state archaeologist will proceed amid evidence of remains from “multiple” burials she has discovered over the past year, in a pile of soil near the cemetery, is still unclear, she told the Daily Camera this month.

Part of the Lafayette Cemetery’s process — “and this is standard,” Norton said — is when digging for a burial, excavated soils are moved off site. Some of that is used to complete a burial, but not all of it fits back in place.

Norton said it was in that mound — “for lack of a better term, what we can call a spoils pile” — that city staff in September first identified what were believed to be human remains. She has examined the soil pile more than once since then and said her team has “continued to find both human remains and objects or fragments of objects related to burials.”

Recently, Norton said, she found two pieces of human bone that “had eroded out” of the pile.

“So I picked those up. I gathered them, because we can’t leave them on the surface. And near them, coming out of the same soil, was this lead — probably from a coffin — adornment, and it has the picture of a lamb on it. And it says, ‘Our Darling,’” Norton said.

“Somebody’s baby was buried in that cemetery and then accidentally ripped up by a backhoe. We don’t know how many previous burials that’s happened to. It’s hard to convey to people if they don’t see it,” she added.

‘Bigger undertaking than I even recognized‘

It was Norton’s recommendation that Lafayette conduct research to better understand conditions at the cemetery. Results from a survey of the cemetery’s underground — done with ground-penetrating radar by a consulting firm — were released in May, and the report said: “Given the density of graves in this cemetery, it is recommended that any excavation be undertaken with extreme care.”

The survey identified about 3,500 graves “and/or full grave shafts” and found that only about 2,200 markers are visible on the surface.

Chris Keller of LINc Partners, who a city official said was hired to “assist us with burials,” last month told a room of plot holders that the survey results show both “false negatives and false positives.”

A false negative, Keller said, is when the survey says an area is clear underground but it isn’t really. An example of that problem arose in February, when a casket burial was approved for what the survey had indicated was an open plot. (The city manager can make exceptions to the moratorium, or temporary restriction, on casket burials.) During that burial, staff discovered a casket already in the space and had to find another location.

There are also false positives, Keller said, “when the GPR says there’s something there, and it’s not a casket, it’s a tree or it’s something else entirely.”

That uncertainty underscores the risk of digging in the cemetery at all, Norton said.

“What breaks my heart right now is we have these tangible remains of peoples’ children or their aunts or their fathers, sitting locked up in my lab. I don’t know how to convey what is going on underground other than to really point out that that’s what we were seeing. And that’s what I fear and suspect is a larger problem in that mound,” she added.

“Typically,” Norton said, when human remains are encountered, they are recovered and “immediately” met with a burial strategy.

“In this case, we knew that this was going to be a larger job and that we were going to need to be very intentional and figure out the best way forward,” Norton said. “Honestly, we’re still figuring that out. … I think it’s an even bigger undertaking than I even recognized. I’ve talked to some colleagues at a local university and some colleagues who run a local archaeology nonprofit to see what they think, and if this is a project they could help take on. Because a professional company is going to be really expensive.”

The pile from the cemetery has been accumulating since around 2010, according to Erin Frazier, a Lafayette city spokesperson.

“The City is making plans for the respectful future reinterment at Coal Creek Cemetery of any materials contained in the soils pile at the Fire Station location,” Frazier told the Camera in an email this week.

‘No one listened’

Local historians Doug Conarroe and Frank Archuleta say there are some plots in the cemetery that likely can be used for casket burials and those spaces should go to existing plot holders.

“My hope is that the 12 or so families with the most immediate need can be accommodated by bringing back (the consultant) if need be to rescan a grave and plot or flag potential underground interference. Then dig very carefully,” Conarroe said in an email this week.

Conarroe and Archuleta have for years asked the city to stop burying anyone in the cemetery’s “potter’s field” — a term historically used to describe burial grounds for individuals who were unidentified, unclaimed, or whose families could not afford private burial arrangements. The “potter’s field” is a portion of the Lafayette Cemetery’s northern space.

The pair were instrumental in the process of identifying about 200 people believed to have been buried in unmarked graves in the Lafayette Cemetery’s potter’s field area, and in convincing the city to install plaques to honor them at the cemetery’s northeastern corner.

“We told the city in 2023 that remains … had been dug up to bury (one family),” Connaroe told the Camera.

A letter dated 2023 from the Lafayette Human Rights Commission endorsed “halting burials in the cemetery section known as Potter’s Field.”

That letter obtained by the Camera said “the Commission has learned about the disproportionate number of missing records for gravesites at the Lafayette Cemetery compared to other communities.”

City spokesperson Frazier said that letter was “also provided to the City Council at that time.”

“Council carried out one of the recommendations from that letter, establishing a memorial to those interred in the Potter’s Field area, a recommendation also endorsed by the Lafayette Cultural Arts Board,” Frazier added.

Conarroe said the city disinterring — or removing — burial remains from the cemetery has been “just a case of not paying attention.”

“In 2023 we asked the city to start paying attention, and in fact asked them to stop burying anyone in Potter’s Field. No one listened,” he added.

But Norton said the problem goes beyond the potter’s field. She believes burials have been disrupted “across the cemetery.”

“I think this cemetery has been full for a very long time,” Norton said, “and that burials have been impacted for a long time.”