Salvador Flores wanted to visit his father at El Carmen Cemetery. At first, the cemetery couldn’t tell the family were the father was buried.
LOSOYA, Texas — Salvador Flores wasn’t able to say goodbye when his father died. Flores was incarcerated in 2021 and his father, Aurelio, passed away that year after a battle with cancer.
Flores is now out of prison, has a job and a fiancé. He decided it was time to visit his father’s grave and say the things he never got to say.
“It’s closure,” Flores said. “We grew up not too close but he was my father. He was my father and there were things that I would like to let out.”
But when Flores traveled to El Carmen Cemetery, he couldn’t get closure. The cemetery didn’t know exactly where Aurelio was.
“They could not give me a specific place where he was buried at,” Flores said.
To make matters worse, the family had not been able to pay for a gravestone when when their father died and there was no marker for the grave in the cemetery. Still, Flores didn’t understand why the cemetery didn’t keep records that could clear this up.
“How are you going to sell a plot to somebody and not write it down?” Flores said.
The family called KENS 5.
KENS 5 visited the cemetery with the family the first week of June. It turns out, the cemetery was owned and managed by El Carmen Catholic Church which was on the same property.
KENS 5 knocked on the local church office doors several times and eventually a pastor, Father Venegas, answered the door. Father Venegas said he was in charge of the El Carmen Parish.
Venegas told KENS 5 they did not know exactly where Aurelio Flores was buried. He told KENS 5 they were looking into the issue and the Archdiocese of San Antonio was involved.
Venegas refused to give KENS 5 any details about the issue and repeatedly asked KENS 5 to call the Archdiocese of San Antonio.
“They know the whole problem,” Venegas said.
The family had already called the Archdiocese of San Antonio and an Archdiocese representative had referred them back to the church.
KENS 5 asked Venegas to go to the cemetery with the family and explain what they knew so far. Venegas said he would only do this if KENS 5 didn’t accompany them, which KENS 5 agreed to.
The Archdiocese of San Antonio contacted KENS 5 later that day. Spokesman Jordan McMorrough told KENS 5 via email, “The Archdiocese of San Antonio is currently investigating the situation with the family regarding El Carmen Cemetery in Losoya.”
McMorrough then followed up the next Monday and told KENS 5 via email, “Parish records indicate that Aurelio H. Flores is interred at the site recently shown to the family at El Carmen Cemetery by the pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church (El Carmen Church). Those records have been double-checked.”
Flores’s fiancé told KENS 5 that Venegas had shown them a grave site the previous week, when KENS 5 was on the property but that Venegas only told them he “thought” that’s where the grave was.
KENS 5 asked McMorrough to explain what the Archdiocese of San Antonio had done to confirm this was the correct grave. McMorrough refused to provide any additional information and just sent us the same statement again.
Flores’s fiancé told KENS 5 neither the Archdiocese of San Antonio nor El Carmen Church have been willing to show them the records proving that Flores’s father is buried in that spot. They still want the Archdiocese of San Antonio to provide that information.
KENS 5 will update the story if we receive an additional response.
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