Posted at 11:43 a.m., Wednesday, March 20, 2002
Hilo mortuary owners arrested
Advertiser Staff
State authorities today arrested the owners of a Big Island mortuary on suspicion of theft in an alleged scam that authorities said involved improper burial of bodies.Robert R. Diego and his wife, Momi Diego, owners of Memorial Mortuary of Hilo, and their daughter Bobby Jean Diego, who runs the mortuary's Kona operation, voluntarily surrendered to authorities this morning and were being processed at the Hilo Police Station, according to their attorney, Brenda Carreira.
Carreira said the Diegos had not been formally charged.
The mortuary owners have been under investigation by the state attorney general in connection with second-degree theft, unauthorized sale of pre-need funeral plans and embalming without a license.
An affidavit for a search warrant filed last month said two Big Island families told investigators that when they disinterred relatives for reburial at another cemetery, they found the bodies in bags, lying on bare dirt, even though they had purchased caskets and concrete vaults from Memorial Mortuary.
