Inset: Paula Tin Nyo and her son Tyber Harrison (KGW/YouTube). Background: Paula Tin Nyo at the Oregon burial plot for her son, Tyber Harrison, before it started being dug up on Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2025 (KGW/YouTube).
An Oregon mother is being forced to dig up her dead son's remains after a funeral home double-booked his grave site, with a judge ruling that it should go to scions from a wealthy family that purchased the plot years earlier.
"I think the humanity or lack of it, the cruelty, and someone feeling so entitled that they just wanted that piece of property when someone's son is already in the ground was sort of unfathomable and she just didn't know how to manage that," David Williams, husband of Paula Tin Nyo, whose 20-year-old son Tyber Harrison died in 2016, told local CBS affiliate KOIN.
Tin Nyo had Harrison's ashes added to a memorial vault that was installed in 2021 at the Portland grave site by Skyline Memorial Gardens and Funeral Home, which filed a lawsuit in 2023 seeking the removal. The vault also held Harrison's baby teeth, hair, and other mementos. He was hit and killed by a truck while walking.
A Multnomah County judge ruled in early December that Skyline had double-booked the site after selling it to Martin and Jane Reser — members of a family that runs a billion-dollar corporation called Reser's Fine Foods, which is based out of Beaverton — in 2019 for their 30-year-old son Alex Reser, who died of an overdose that year.
In a separate Dec. 22 verdict, a Multnomah County civil jury found that Skyline was negligent for the double booking but did not inflict "severe emotional distress" on Tin Nyo since she had breached her original contract with the funeral company, which stated she was not allowed to add human cremains to the burial plot, only mementos.
Tin Nyo's lawyer, Darian Stanford, said this was due to a grieving mother not reading the fine print of the cemetery contract, according to The Oregonian.
"In 25 years as a lawyer, I'd say this is as profoundly sad and disappointed as I've ever been," Stanford told the local newspaper. "Paula and her family deserve better."
According to The Oregonian, Alex Reser is interred near the burial site in a Reser family plot. The family reportedly wanted to install a bench in the area where Harrison's remains were located, which they plan to do in the coming year.
Skyline admitted to the double booking and tried to make things right by offering a refund of the $16,000 that Tin Nyo paid. It also offered to rebury her son's vault just a few feet away, but she never responded to the offer.
"They took accountability for that mistake, they apologized for it, they offered every remedy available for it under the law and the contract," Skyline's attorney, St.Clair, told the Multnomah County jury this month during closing arguments, according to the Oregonian. "We're asking you to look at facts over feelings," St. Clair said.
Tin Nyo and her lawyer argued that only a small amount of ashes were placed in her son's vault as part of a watercolor painting she made with them. Still, having the remains disinterred would cause severe emotional distress, they said.
"They didn't think she would suffer," Williams told KOIN, crying. "I can't imagine anyone thinking that she wouldn't suffer. I'm sad for those people that think this way."
Williams added, "Paula and her kids will have to sadly process and go through this again."
The Resers reportedly did not want to be part of the legal drama but were ordered to join the litigation against their wishes, KOIN reports. Attempts by the station and Law&Crime to reach them for comment were unsuccessful.
Skyline began digging up Harrison's vault on Tuesday and is expected to fully remove it in the coming weeks. It did not respond to Law&Crime's requests for comment.