I was looking up some ancestors in a very, very poorly maintained cemetery last week and came upon what was pretty clearly a human bone. The cemetery was awful, literally the worst place I’ve ever been. It is my understanding that it was a privately owned cemetery at one time, and if I had to guess, I would imagine the owner died and the cemetery could not be sold because it was losing money. Some parts of it were kept up, probably by those who visit the graves of loved ones regularly, but most of it was a complete wreck, trash dumped everywhere, stones broken and turned over, the driving path impassable by most cars (it is on a steep hillside). The burials ranged from about 1930 to as late as 2000 and a few individual graves were in quite good shape with flowers.
What can/should be done about something like this? Isn’t it generally against the law to keep a cemetery in that condition? I live hours away and would not be able to clean it up myself or organize others to do so. Should I call the local police?
Yes. Regardless of whether or not it’s a violation of some code to keep a cemetery in that condition, you have found what you believe to be human remains. Whether the remainder of the remains are interred at that cemetery or the bone is, in fact, evidence of a homicide is something for law enforcement to determine.
Some (but not all) states have actual cemetery boards that have varying levels of authority. It might be worth checking if this state has one and giving them a call.
My personal opinion is that you should call the police.
I would, however, insist that you do not, under any circumstance, move the bone or disrupt the area in any way. Odds of this being some kind of foul play are minimal, but just in case it is, it’s best to just leave the area and notify police.
This is interesting. What about cemeteries on private land? I have family buried on private land in Montana, and I can tell you when the landowner didn’t feel like keeping up the landscaping, the cemetery started looking like crap. Would be nice if there was some sort of law/regulation requiring cemeteries to be kept up.
I recently read The American Way of Death** by Jessica Mitford and she said some of these cemetery operators will run the cemeteries like a Ponzi scheme…taking the “perpetual upkeep” money to open a new cemetery, collect more money, and so on…also charging exorbitant fees to those who wish to be buried in order to make a profit for themselves.
I’d call the police. I don’t have a cite but I read some story about human remains being found in a peat bog in Denmark…DNA testing eventually revealed them to be those of a thousands of years old mummy, but some guy ended up confessing that he’d murdered his wife, because he assumed the remains were hers. I highly doubt this is the case in your circumstance, but, still.
Yes, it was lying on a pile of muck and leaves in a sunken grave.
This graveyard also had some of those raised vaults that are common in low-lying areas (although this place was, as I said, on a hillside.) According to something I found on the internet, when the cemetery started going to hell, some people had their loved ones’ remains moved to other cemeteries. But they just broke open the vaults and took out the bodies, they didn’t remove the vaults or even clean up the leftover bricks and debris. Because of that, it’s impossible to tell whether a broken vault was from one of these intentional removals, or the work of a grave robber. I was afraid to look closely at these opened vaults.
Some additional background - this graveyard is in rural Appalachia, in an area where traditionally people were buried in small family plots. There are organizations for preserving such cemeteries and in fact I saw more than one in the area that had a sign stating it was under the care of a preservation program. Yet this place, which had hundreds of graves and was behind some houses right off the main road near a town, was in literally horrifying condition. So I wonder if there is some political reason it has been allowed to degenerate.
Not to digress too far into Pit territory, but my great aunt and uncle had a young son who was hit by a car, and they went to considerable expense to put him in this cemetery in a fairly elaborate raised vault. They’re long since dead and probably in that same cemetery. The vault was more or less intact, but to be in that place…I believe nothing about an afterlife other than that peoples’ material remains ought to be treated with respect, if nothing else because they expected so in life and because they ought to be in a pleasant place where their families can visit in quiet contemplation. I’ve seen these news stories about funeral parlors and graveyards mistreating bodies and lying about what was done with them, and I now understand the outrage. These are dead people who can’t look after their monuments etc. For a human being to die and end up part of a horror show because of someone’s greed or stupidity, it makes me goddamned angry.
I’ve contacted both the local police and the state cemetery preservation society.
What kind of bone was it? I’m just curious as to how you knew it was a human bone and not an animal bone – in a very poorly maintained place like that there might be some kind of animal scavenging activity and some animals dying. Apart from a skull or an intact hand/foot, I don’t think I’d be able to tell a human bone apart from an animal bone in most cases.
It does seem likely to be a human bone since it was in a grave…
That seems pretty irresponsible and selfish of them – doesn’t that make the cemetery a much worse place for the people who can’t afford to move their loved ones’ remains, and probably attract teenagers who want to play in a creepy old burial vault, which means the cemetery will likely become worse and worse?
Well, Hyperelastic described it as being on top of some gunk “in a sunken grave.” I’m not sure what that means, but I was picturing an area of dirt and grass that had collapsed into a pit, possibly because the buried casket had broken and exposed the remains within to the surrounding soil, and perhaps one of the bones could have been exposed to the surface thanks to burrowing animals or digging animals or erosion from rain or something. That seemed more likely to me than that a bone from food trash or a wild animal would appear in the same place. But I could be wrong about that of course.
It’s in West by God Virginia. I emailed the West Virginia Cemetery Preservation Association this morning. Also called the county sheriff, but there was no answer (not even a machine) at 10 am (!) Will try again on Monday.
I can’t be 100% sure it was a human bone, but it was a long bone, like an adult leg bone. It was broken off on one end. Definitely not food waste. The place was in such bad shape that I was not at all surprised to see the bone, just shocked if that makes any sense. There are probably more, but I just wanted the hell out of there. I had told my wife and kids to stay by the car because there were so many opened vaults.
Not too far off topic, but abandoned cemeteries (complete with broken-into crypts and scattered bones) can be within the five boros of New York.
The Bayside-Acacia Cemetery in Queens is a prime example. (Lots of pictures; scroll down for more information). I’ve been there, and while parts are being cleaned up, there are sections where a virtual forest has grown around the graves.
On the Brooklyn-Queens border you’ll find Machpelah Cemetery, final resting place of Harry Houdini. It too, has fallen into neglect, the gatehouse/office abandoned and gone to seed.