Photo of 6-month-old Jada Hickman at the cemetery where her remains went missing (WRDW/YouTube).
A Georgia funeral home allegedly lost the body of a 6-month-old who was supposed to be buried with her favorite rattle toy in 2001. Now, the child’s parents — who didn’t find out until last year after they tried exhuming her for cremation — are taking the owners to court, claiming they offered “dirt from the grave space as a replacement” for their daughter’s missing remains.
“Such egregious conduct violates applicable laws and regulations as well as basic human dignity and decency,” Kamaron Hickman and Fatima Nettles say in their complaint, filed on Nov. 15 in Richmond County.
The former couple claims their daughter’s remains came to a “disrespectful and undignified end” sometime after her burial in 2001. The infant, Jada Kai Hickman, died while the pair was stationed in Germany with the U.S. Army. She was flown back to the states and laid to rest by the Williams Funeral Home in Augusta, Georgia, at Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery, which is operated by SCI Shared Resources. The remains were supposed to be placed in the middle of two plots that Hickman and Nettles had purchased for themselves — or so they thought.
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“Years later … plaintiffs decided that they wanted to exhume, and cremate, Jada’s remains and divide her ashes into two urns, or other appropriate vessels (i.e., one for each Plaintiff), so that their daughter would always be close to them regardless of where they lived,” the complaint says, noting how Hickman and Nettles are divorced now and both living in different states.
“Although Plaintiffs continued regularly visiting Jada’s grave after they moved, the distance made it difficult for them to do so as frequently as they desired,” it adds. “In or about August 2023, Plaintiffs began taking the necessary steps to authorize the exhumation and cremation of their daughter’s remains. Initially, Plaintiffs encountered some push back from Defendants, who discouraged them from exhuming the remains. However, after contacting, and receiving assistance from, the Office of the Mayor of the City of Augusta, Georgia, Plaintiffs ultimately obtained the necessary authorization.”
Once the exhumation began, the cemetery’s general manager, Clifton Atwood, allegedly called Hickman and Nettles and gave them the morbid news. “[Atwood] advised that they had been digging at Jada’s grave space all morning but were not able to find anything, and that they were going to stop digging for the day but the following day they would try digging at the other two grave spaces Plaintiffs had purchased,” the complaint says.
According to her parents, Jada was wearing clothes and shoes when she was buried inside of her metal coffin in 2001. Atwood, however, said he was unable to find anything, even after checking the other two grave spaces.
His solution: “Atwood offered Plaintiff Nettles some dirt from the grave space as a replacement for the cremated ashes that Plaintiffs sought,” per the complaint. “Nettles advised that they do not want dirt and that they instead want to know where their daughter’s remains are located,” the document says.
A representative later called on behalf of Hillcrest Memorial Park, according to Hickman and Nettles, and offered another explanation.
“Everything may have returned back to the earth,” they allegedly said.
Hickman and Nettles’ lawyers point out how this is “implausible, given the nature of human decomposition and the fact that she was buried with items containing metal, including a metal casket.” Still, the funeral home insisted that they had not done anything wrong and blamed “the passage of time” for Jada’s disappearance.
“As we discussed with you, we apologize that, due to the passage of time, we were unable to recover the remains of your daughter,” they allegedly said in an email, per the parents’ complaint.
Hickman and Nettles believe their daughter was subjected to “unlawful and improper practices” by Hillcrest’s operators.
“As a direct and proximate result of Defendants’ negligence and carelessness, Plaintiffs have suffered, and will continue to suffer, severe mental injuries and emotional distress that no reasonable person could be expected to endure or adequately cope with,” the complaint concludes.
Jada’s story went viral on social media earlier this year after Hickman made posts and videos about it on Facebook, which have been viewed over 1.5 million times. “What was supposed to be a positive experience has turned into an absolute nightmare,” he wrote in a Jan. 3 post, per the Augusta Press. “I don’t remember a lot from that day but I do know she was buried in a white casket, little white shoes, a white dress, a headband and her favorite rattle toy.”
Hickman and Nettles are suing for “breach of contract, breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, breach of fiduciary or special duty, fraudulent conduct, negligence, mishandling of a corpse, interference with right of burial, interference with easement of burial, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress and unjust enrichment.” Their lawyers are seeking “equitable relief and damages” for the pain that’s allegedly been caused.
Williams Funeral Home and the other named defendants did not respond to Law&Crime’s requests for comment on Thursday, with one worker saying the general manager in charge was unreachable at the moment. The operators have sent out a statement to local media outlets, claiming they were “unable to discuss this matter with media” and were in contact with Hickman and Nettles.
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