Families say thieves are stealing items from loved ones’ grave markers

HICKORY, N.C. — Families in Catawba County are concerned after they said there have been repeated thefts at the area’s largest graveyard.

There are 16,000 markers at Catawba Memorial Park, which is along Highway 70 in Hickory.

Amber Hicks visits her mother’s gravesite at Catawba Memorial Park often. Hicks said that someone has taken items from her mother’s marker three times in two months.

“We’ve had a flag, a flag stand,” Hicks said. “We had a little sunflower garden ornament. It’s gone. When we arrived, her actual flower, a sunflower is gone, too.”

Teresa Stillwell came out to the memorial park to spend time at her father’s gravesite Wednesday morning.

He was a Vietnam War veteran and was honored with two Purple Heart medals. She said someone took a Marine Corps statue.

“I think that had to be the lowest of the low,” Stillwell said. “That someone would take something off of someone’s grave. Really? What purpose would they have stealing something off someone’s grave?”

Catawba Memorial Park officials said that they get a handful of reports of thefts from loved ones each year.

They do not have gates or surveillance cameras at the park, which is open from dusk to dawn to accommodate as many people as possible.

Hicks said her mother died after contracting COVID-19 in early 2021. Her family has placed a note on her gravesite hoping the person reads it and will think twice before taking something.

“Just stop,” Hicks said. “Be a good human. Let the dead rest in peace.”

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