Fans have flocked to various locations to pay their respects to Kobe Bryant since he died last month. Many have visited a Corona Del Mar, California cemetery to leave flowers at the gravesite of the Los Angeles Lakers legend. But the cemetery confirmed to USA Today this week that fans are actually visiting and leaving mementos at the wrong gravesite.
"We can confirm that is not Kobe and Gianna's resting place," Ashley Bunton of Service Corporation International, which is the company that owns the cemetery, told USA Today. "We cannot divulge any additional details as to where they are. But we can tell you that is not the correct location.''
Pacific View Memorial Park is clearing out flowers left for the Bryant family on a daily basis. The private plot fans keep visiting belongs to a different family.
"Others have actually run into the family members who've kind of shooed people away from that spot just because it's disturbing the peace to the person interred there," Bunton said.
According to USA Today, the person who is buried at the plot that fans keep visiting was laid to rest there in November of 2019. The crowds flocked to the site last week when the Daily Mail shared photos and identified the gravesite in question as the final resting spot of Kobe and Gianna Bryant. There are no engravings at the site and Pacific View Memorial Park said the purple and gold flowers around the plot is a coincidence.
Pacific View Memorial Park has increased security as a result of the situation.
"Just a lot of people coming wandering the cemetery and looking to see if they can locate the burial site," Burton said. "They're just having to monitor things that are going on there."
Pacific View Memorial Park will not reveal the exact location of Kobe and Gianna Bryant's gravesite, but they insist it's not where fans have been consistently leaving flowers.
Kobe and Gianna Bryant were killed, along with seven others, in a helicopter crash in California on Jan. 26. There will be a ceremony on Feb. 24 at the Staples Center to honor Bryant.
