Houston families frustrated over year-long delays for headstones from Stonecutters Monuments

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Multiple Houston area families say they're still waiting on headstones they paid for more than a year ago.

They're all customers of a company called Stonecutters Monuments.

Kerry Miller showed Eyewitness News a receipt dated August 2023 for a $3,700 headstone she ordered for her husband, a double lung transplant recipient who died at the age of 46.

After the cemetery signed off on the headstone design in December that year, Miller said Stonecutters told her it would take 3 to 5 months to deliver the headstone.

"They just sent me images of the final product, (and) it being loaded on the freight," Miller said, referencing photos she said the company sent her in February 2024.

It was Miller's understanding that she'd have the headstone by May 2024, but over a year after paying for it, she still doesn't have it.

"I feel as though there's no closure," she said.

Miller came forward after Eyewitness News reported on LaShonda Jones' experience with Stonecutters on Saturday.

Jones paid almost $2,900 for a headstone for her son in February 2024 but still hadn't received it at the time of the Eyewitness News report.

"They told me that it was in production in May. Come August, when I called again, they were saying they were waiting on a vase," Jones said.

After Eyewitness News contacted the company, Stonecutters installed the headstone at Jones' son's gravesite, but Jones says it isn't of the quality she agreed upon.

Shirley Johnson-Young said she's also had trouble getting Stonecutters to deliver after paying them $3,400 for her husband's headstone in September 2023.

"It's been like hell on wheels, to say the least," Johnson-Young said.

In November, Johnson-Young filed a lawsuit demanding a refund.

"They just made up all kinds of inconsistent stories. One day it was in shipment, the next time we were putting it on the next shipment," she said.

Stonecutters emailed Eyewitness News to say that some of the granite it uses has to be shipped from overseas. The company blamed the delays, in part, on a "global shipping crisis."

In Johnson-Young's lawsuit, she said a company representative told her the delays were caused by "pirates and overseas wars."

"When I called them on it, they weren't able to tell me which war. They said, 'Well, you know, the war. There's a lot going on,'" she said.

Johnson-Young said she eventually ordered a headstone from a different company, which was able to deliver it in under three months.

"I feel as though if you cannot give me what I asked for, what I paid for, tell me. Just be honest," Miller said.

Below is Stonecutters' response:

"The monument purchased date is not the production date. Cemetery rules and regulations require the monument design and cemetery monument application to be approved before we can start production. The average production time is an estimate. Sometimes the families take months to approve the design, and the cemeteries take months to approve their applications. Our production clock cannot start until we receive all approvals. The monuments in question were manufactured within the average production time. The cemeteries set the industry standard, they take 2-3 years to make monuments and charge 2-3 times the price.

We keep basic traditional inventory in stock that we produce locally at our workshop. The families ordered a custom 1 of 1 monument carved out of an import granite color that can only be made by the factory and sourced from overseas. The global shipping crisis has impacted the entire industry due to the nature of the business. Regardless of the situation, we take full responsibility for ensuring our families receive their monuments. We communicated the challenges to the families and made duplicate monuments for any family that was impacted by the supply chain disruption.

We have made significant changes to our production and supply chain in order to reduce our custom monument production times back to normal. Despite the challenges we are fully committed to delivering all monuments in a timely manner once they arrive."

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