I was searching for my father online — trying to reconnect after years apart — when I discovered he had been dead for four and a half years.

His name came up in a records search: deceased. No one had called me. No one had conducted a reasonable diligent search for me. I am his only child, and I live only 35 miles away from where County of Los Angeles buried my father.

My father, Richard Charles McKinnon, served in the United States Army in Vietnam beginning in 1967. He earned the right to a burial with full military honors, a veteran's headstone, a flag presented to family, and a place of rest in a national cemetery. None of that happened.

Stoney Point Healthcare Center in Chatsworth CA, Crawford Lorenzen Mortuary in Northridge CA, Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, Los Angeles County Office of Decedent Affairs, and the Los Angeles County Public Administrators Office were all aware I existed, that my father had a next- of- kin/ daughter and had my name documented.  Each had policies requiring next-of-kin notification and next- of- kin authorization for disposition of remains and cremation. They had my father's name and his Social Security number — information cross-referenced with VA medical benefits through the Social Security Administration. Not one person or agency made a single call to determine if my father was a veteran.

 Instead, they classified my father as "Unclaimed Dead," with no next-of-kin and cremated my father without ever notifying me and without my authorization.

My father was buried in a Los Angeles County mass grave in Dec 2024 alongside 1,896 other sets of human remains. I didn't find out my father was even deceased until May 2026 — four and a half years after he died.

Since then, I have been stonewalled by a Healthcare facility, a mortuary  and county agencies. I submitted written requests with Stoney Point Heathcare Center and Crawford Lorenzen Mortuary to review my father's records. Both will not produce records their facilities are in possession of.  I  have submitted formal California Public Records Act requests to the County agencies for all documentation in my fathers case as well as their offices policies for next- of- kin notification, next- of-kin authorization for disposition of remains & cremation and veteran status checks. These records have not been produced in their entirety or at all. No counties policies for any office as been produced.

Here is what makes this bigger than one family's loss: there is no federal law requiring counties, medical examiners, coroners, mortuary's, hospitals, skilled nursing facilities or public administrators to perform veteran status checks on someone who has died. This is true even when they have the person's name and Social Security number. Federal law only requires contacting the VA when they already know someone is a veteran. That gap leaves every estranged or isolated veteran in America vulnerable to exactly what happened to my father.

I am asking for three things:

1. A proper military burial and ceremony for my father. He served this country in Vietnam. I am asking for a formal military ceremony with the full honors he was owed.
   
   
2. Accountability for Los Angeles County. These agencies violated their own policies, failed my father, and are now refusing to comply with a Public Records Act requests. That cannot stand.
   
   
3. Federal legislation requiring veteran status checks for all suspected unclaimed dead before cremation. When a county has a decedent's identity and Social Security number, federal law must require a veteran status check before cremation. One database query could have saved my father's military burial rights.

I have no powerful organization behind me. What I have is the truth — and I am asking you to help me make it impossible to ignore. 

Please sign my petition. Please share my petition. Please help make sure no other family goes through this.