Shock, anger among reactions of those who lost money

Those who have been affected by the business dealings of Michael Graham and Associates are wondering how it could have happened.

"It made us angry," said Montene Watkins, 65, of rural Sikeston. "I don't know how people can do other people like that."

Watkins and her husband, Johnny, 67, bought plots and caskets so that when the time came they could be buried at Forest Hills Memorial Gardens Cemetery near Morley. Between 1999 and 2004 the couple paid $6,000 so everything would be in order if something happened to Johnny, who suffers from brain cancer.

But when news of the cemetery scandal came out, the two found out the caskets don't exist. Montene Watkins hasn't been to the cemetery to see the plots, so she doesn't know if they've been set aside, either.

"Shock was our reaction, because we had the ownership papers and everything," she said.

The Watkinses' story is one of the most troubling to come out of the cemetery debacle. The most widespread problems with the cemeteries were upkeep problems.

Charles Ulmer, who took part in a lawsuit against Graham that has now been rendered moot by the state attorney general's legal action, said he and others in Sikeston mowed patches of cemetery themselves because no one else would.

"The rest was still grown up like a horse pasture," Ulmer said.

People like Montene Watkins may have lost the money they paid for products they didn't receive. John Fougere, spokesman for the state attorney general, said the office is attempting to provide some form of restitution for consumers wronged by Graham's company.

Sikeston funeral director Tom Nunnelee has offered to sell items like caskets and grave liners at cost to people who can show they've been wronged by Graham's company. But the money they already paid Graham might be gone.

"If the attorney general can't do anything, we'll just have to deal with it," Montene Watkins said.