‘A view to die for’: The macabre history of the Verdugo Hills Cemetery in Sunland-Tujunga

Los Angeles has no shortage of notable cemeteries filled with the graves of famous people and the history that goes along with them.

Maybe you’ve attended an event at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where you can pay your respects to famous people like Judy Garland or Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell.

But in the hills of the Sunland-Tujunga neighborhood there’s another cemetery that holds the more than 100-year-old history of early residents in the area — and a macabre event that washed the dead out of their graves and into the surrounding streets.

At the Verdugo Hills Cemetery high above the neighborhood of Sunland-Tujunga, more than 2,000 people are interred on a piece of land with a panoramic view of the community below.

Another view from the Verdugo Hills Cemetery.

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The Parson founder

“A lot of people amazingly don’t even know this is here,” said Craig Durst with the Friends of Verdugo Hills Cemetery.

As Durst explains, the cemetery was established in 1922. Back then, local Reverend James Wornum was looking for a plot of land where he could be buried among his flock.

A painting of James and Jenny Wornum.

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‘Parson’ Wornum and his wife Jenny have prominent placement in the cemetery, where two white rock crosses mark their graves atop the hill. The two were well-known for traveling around the community giving sermons from their horse-drawn wagon.

“And they used to come up that path up there which was Sunland Boulevard. And usually when they were coming home they’d be singing hymns," Durst said. "So as they arrived they’d come over the top of the hill and the whole community could hear them signing. And it was something that people just loved about this community."

Craig Durst of Friends of Verdugo Hills Cemetery.

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Robert Garrova / LAist

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Over the decades, hundreds of other prominent members of the community would be buried at the cemetery. That includes members of the Hatch family, who were known as Little Landers, a community of settlers with utopian ideals who came to the area to live an agrarian lifestyle just north of the chaos of downtown Los Angeles.

But in 1978, a weather event caused a grim scene that has become legendary.

A macabre catastrophe

In early February that year, a sudden deluge pummeled the landscape.

“Just after midnight on that night in 1978, the hillside gave way and a landslide went down the hill and it carried with it hundreds of caskets, many of which broke open," Durst said. "The body parts were thrown out into the roadway and the street and it was quite a mess."

The L.A. County coroner at the time, Thomas Noguchi, wrote about the gruesome catastrophe in his book titled Coroner:

“Down toward the city streets slid rotting caskets containing more than a hundred bodies borne on the lip of the mudslide. Within minutes caskets and corpses engulfed the area, plunging through windows into the living rooms of houses, into stores, and lodging against walls. One body ended up wedged in the doorway of a supermarket.” 

The Verdugo Hills Cemetery plot map

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Longtime local resident and volunteer caretaker Bill Andrew said that in the years after the landslide, the graveyard fell into decay. There are stories about teenagers breaking into the mausoleum and pulling out some of the caskets.

“They did some terrible things. So this whole property has gone through disrepair, desecration, vandalism," he said. "And everybody that’s helped here — all the volunteers — are owed a great deal of gratitude for trying to restore what you see now."

About five years ago, Durst decided the historic grounds deserved better.

“There’s the famous saying by the Englishman that you can tell how a community is by how they care for their dead," he said. "And that struck me really hard and I thought, we need to do better."

Now, through the nonprofit Friends of Verdugo Hills Cemetery, Durst hosts monthly events where volunteers have helped clear vegetation and even repair stone work on the mid-century mausoleum.

The cemetery has even had at least one celebrity volunteer. Turns out actor Bill Pullman and his family are also supporters of the cemetery.

“[Pullman] and his wife came up here to work one day. And I sent them up here where we’re on top of this hill and just told them to clear debris,” Durst recalled. “I didn’t bother him and he was working up here all day long with his wife and then he came down at the end of the day all excited: ‘You gotta come see what we did!’ I’m thinking, ‘What did they do?’ So I came up and they had made this trail. So I call this the Pullman Path."

Durst said he wants more people to learn the history of the place and experience the beautiful views.

Andrew said it best: “We jokingly say — with a little bit of respect — that it’s a view to die for. And it is!”

Upcoming event

If you want to see the cemetery for yourself, Durst will be hosting a “dinner with the dead” event on Sept. 6.

Check out the Friends of Verdugo Hills Cemetery website for updates and to sign up for their newsletter.