Cemetery Owner Claims Unearthing Of Bones Was Accidental; Family Members Upset

A grave digger and cemetery owner maintain they are innocent of the charges against them after Gastonia police found several disturbed graves at Beasley's Memorial Gardens on Morningside Drive.

Cemetery worker Ernest Stowe turned himself in to authorities early Friday. Odell Beasley, the cemetery’s owner, turned himself in late Thursday. They both face charges related to the defacing of graves.

Meanwhile, concerns are growing among those who have loved ones buried in the cemetery. One woman told Eyewitness News there were always holes punched in her mother’s grave, but she never thought much about it until now. Now she wonders if her mother’s remains are still under the ground. Another said out of her eight family members buried in the cemetery, she can’t find a single one’s grave.

“I just feel so sad I don’t know what to do,” said Karen Karmara.

A family also lamented their loved one’s headstone has been moved. And one woman said she saw her mother’s casket sticking out of the ground, and she suspects it wasn’t buried deep enough to begin with.

They all said they suspected problems at the cemetery and some of them even complained, but they thought they were corrected.

On Thursday police said Beasley told Stowe to get dirt to fill in sunken parts of cemetery, and no precautions were taken for graves that were already there. But Beasley told Eyewitness News in a statement that he bought the cemetery in the 1980s and many people’s graves were unmarked, which led to their accidental unearthing.

“At the time of the purchase, the church was informed by the previous owner there were several unmarked graves located in the cemetery,” said Mercedes Hamilton, a friend of Beasley’s family.

This is not the first time Beasley has run into trouble in his business. Eyewitness News obtained documents that state his license to conduct funerals was revoked in 2001. Customers complained he refused to release bodies until deposits were paid and that he did shoddy embalming work.

The license does not affect his ability to own and maintain a cemetery.

The bones from at least eight graves are in police custody. They said they don’t know exactly how, but all of the remains will be properly re-interred. They said testing the bones to find out how old they are is part of the ongoing investigation.

The state board of funeral services is also investigating the case to make sure those who purchased caskets did receive what they paid for.

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