Mother says Royal Palm Cemetery South does not respect the dead children buried there

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - In St. Petersburg, a mother who buried an infant son long ago says the cemetery where he and other children are laid to rest should pay more respect to the dead.

Sacred ground, where dozens of children laid to rest over the last several decades, are left unkempt and buried under weeds.  Some of the graves are so grown over, it is impossible to make out the markers.

Robbie Prymula, whose son is buried here, says no one at Royal Palm Cemetery South seemed to take her concerns seriously.  Then she asked us to take action.

I asked the maintenance manager at Royal Palm about the lack of maintenance.  He did not want to speak on camera, but admitted workers were behind on both the mowing and weed-eating in the baby land section.

The cemetery mowed Baby Land after our initial call, and after our visit, crews cut away the weeds that covered the small pieces of granite.

We did some checking with the Department of Financial Services, which regulates cemeteries and funeral homes.

I found that last year, the state fined the owner of Royal Palm Cemetery South $35,000 after at least three of his four properties failed inspection. The maintenance of burial plots was among the failures.