A grieving father says he feels like a “scar got ripped open” after he learned that a Georgia burial site could not find his deceased daughter’s remains.
Kamaron Hickman laid his daughter Jada to rest at Hillcrest Memorial Park in Augusta decades ago. The 6-month-old died in her sleep in 2001 while they were living in Germany – where Hickman was stationed at the time while in the Army.
Earlier this month, Hickman shared that he had a plan to exhume Jada’s remains with intentions to cremate her since he no longer lives in the area. But the experience became “an absolute nightmare,” he explained in a Jan. 3 Facebook post.
“The staff told us that they dug up all three plots that we purchased back then with zero success and concluded that after all this time, the remains’ may have’ returned to the earth,” Hickman wrote. “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. We were asked if we wanted some dirt from the plot for our ceremony, which really rubbed me the wrong way.”
Attached to his emotional post are pictures of Jada, the plot of land, and her marble grave marker. Hickman and his former wife, Fatima Nettles, decided to cremate her to carry the ashes in necklaces.
“She was at the right time and we were in the right place in our life to have her and to raise her,” Nettles told WRDW, adding that her child was “full of life.”
“We didn’t get an opportunity to, and then we wanted to bring her closer to us, and we don’t have the opportunity to, and I just think that’s unfair,” she continued.
Now, the perplexed couple is yearning for answers after the owners of the memorial park said they were “unable to recover” her remains, according to the report.
“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,” Hickman said. “I pray this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
Per the Augusta Press, Hickman said he’s going to file a report with the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office to get to the bottom of the mystery.
