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Judge rules Altmeyer is high bidder for Shepherd cemetery

By Amy McCraw, Published: July 17, 2025

At the end of a hearing that included six lawyers representing various interests in the case, the Superior Court judge overseeing the receivership of Shepherd Memorial Park on Wednesday made a series of decisions that will likely allow Altmeyer Funeral Services to purchase the cemetery.

  “You’re the highest bidder,” Judge Marvin Pope said as he gestured with his hand toward Jimmy Altmeyer, who was sitting in a Henderson County courtroom with his attorney, Clinton H. Cogburn of Asheville.

  Pope also directed Altmeyer, who owns the West Virginia-based funeral business Dignity Funeral Services Inc., to deposit with the court a portion of the $340,000 he bid last month to buy the cemetery. Dignity does business as Altmeyer Funeral Services.

  Altmeyer said after the hearing that he was happy with and respected Pope’s decisions in the case.

  “I look forward to doing an outstanding job for the community,” he said.

  But Altmeyer’s purchase of the cemetery that was once the property of the late Hendersonville funeral director Tom Shepherd is not yet a done deal.

 Altmeyer’s bid is subject to a 10-day period where his offer could be upset. Durham attorney Daniel Gibson, who was one of three attorneys representing Shepherd’s widow, Melody Shepherd, at Wednesday’s hearing, said he intends to move forward with appealing Pope’s ruling to the North Carolina Court of Appeals.

   Pope’s decision to name Altmeyer the highest bidder for Shepherd Memorial Park came after he rejected motions filed this week by both Shepherd and Altmeyer. Melody Shepherd did not attend the hearing.

  Calling it a “fiction,” Pope also rejected a trust Shepherd proposed that would have allowed her to bid on the cemetery by putting the property in the hands of the Community Foundation of Henderson County.

  “I find it is not acceptable to this court,” he said. “The trust is a fiction.”

  Pope then listed several reasons the proposed trust fell short of an acceptable way to transfer the cemetery from Shepherd to the Community Foundation.

  Those reasons included that the trust Shepherd proposed was not an executed document, it made no mention of who at the foundation would be qualified or licensed to operate the cemetery, it would have expired after 25 years, it named one of her attorneys, Stephen P. Lindsay, as a board member of the trust and it stipulated that Altmeyer would never be allowed to purchase the cemetery.

  Pope also rejected a motion Altmeyer made requesting to join the lawsuit the N.C. Cemetery Commission first filed against the cemetery four years ago, saying Altmeyer was not a necessary party to the suit and could not be part of the suit because he was a bidder for the property.

  The judge also ruled against a motion Shepherd filed asking Pope to pause an order he made after a hearing in June held at the conclusion of a second attempt at an auction of the cemetery.

  In addition to the attorneys for Shepherd and Altmeyer, Sharon Alexander, an attorney representing the N.C. Cemetery Commission, and Mack McKeller, a Brevard attorney whom Pope appointed guardian ad litem in the case, also attended Wednesday’s hearing held at the Grove Street Courthouse. Each spoke only briefly when Pope asked if they wanted to be heard.

  The motions and trust Pope considered Wednesday were filed after a June 26 auction for the property where Altmeyer placed the only bid of $250,000.

  Pope rejected Altmeyer’s bid that day after learning the offer did not come close to covering costs of more than $331,000 associated with operating the cemetery during the time it has been in receivership.

A court-ordered appraisal of the property put its value between $900,000 and $1.4 million.

  After Altmeyer agreed to increase his offer to cover the cemetery’s operating costs, Shepherd through one of her attorneys said she would pay $340,000 and run the cemetery through a trust. Altmeyer then offered to pay $340,000 and questioned whether Shepherd could bid on the property.

  An order Pope made last December had explicitly barred her  from “directly or indirectly” placing a bid to purchase the property or “acquiring any interest in the cemetery.”

But during the June 26 hearing the judge said Shepherd’s proposal to form a trust gave her the right to bid.

  After rejecting the trust Shepherd proposed, Pope on Wednesday awarded the property to Altmeyer for the amount he bid in June.

  An earlier attempt at auctioning the cemetery, in March, failed to produce any bidders.

  In separate enforcement actions over the past five years, the North Carolina Board of Funeral service shut down the century old Thos. Shepherd & Son funeral home and the Cemetery Commission forced the cemetery into receivership after numerous complaints.

  Altmeyer eventually bought Shepherd’s funeral home after it was put up for auction.

  Pope on Dec. 23 ordered the public sale of Shepherd Memorial Park, the last remaining large asset of the family that transitioned to the funeral business in 1903 after first selling coffins at a furniture store.