Caylee Anthony’s body was found in December 2008 on a wooded piece of property along Surburban Drive in Orlando, after she had been reported missing in July 2008. Her mother (Casey) was acquitted in 2011 of her murder. Upon the discovery of her body a makeshift memorial was erected on the property where she was found. A cross was placed, lots of toys and stuffed animals were placed there. And then time passed and the memorial was left subject to the weather, etc. abandoned and overgrown.
The property is not public land, in fact there were no trespassing signs posted on the property. And the owners have reportedly attempted to sell the land.
I’ve got to believe that the memorial site on the property has a significant impact on it’s value and desirability.
So now you have complete strangers with no connection to the Anthony family or the property, deciding on their own clean up the memorial site and erect a new cross with fresh stuffed animals. It’s 130 miles from Sarasota to Orlando. How often is this couple going to be there to keep the memorial maintained? It rains almost daily in Orlando. The site is going to become worn down again.
If I was the property owner, I’d pull all of that crap out of there everytime someone put it up.
I love the comment at the bottom of the article: The life department called, your order is in, pick it up! Seriously!
And the reason the Sarasota couple was in Orlando…playing Pokémon Go. :rolleyes:
You can say the same about all roadside memorials where someone bought it, and some group of family, friends, schoolmates, posse members keep “maintaining” a tatty memorial.
One one hand, grief is a strange thing and needs to be respected.
OTOH, public memorials need to have a time limit. Take the foil-wrapped cross, candles and stuffed animals home to a corner of your yard, if you must.
But as the OP noted, the people who recently tended the memorial have no connection to the family, did not know the victim, and trespassed on private property.
Their grief, or self-importance, or stupidity, or whatever it is that compels them to do this, does not need to be respected.
Wetlands protection might be an issue. Owning land with any wetlands can be a nightmare.
A close friend of mine bought 2 acres and wanted to build a house. There was a wetland area at the bottom corner of his land. He was building on the other side of the property. The inspector put him through hell. He had to build a temporary barrier to protect the wetland area. The inspectors were out there several times making sure the wetland wasn’t disturbed. Damn mosquitoes are bad there too. They breed in that area.
Personally, I really dislike these memorials. They spring up on private property or public lands, they look like crap in a very short time, causing someone else to have to clean up the dead flowers and soggy teddy bears, and the thought of remembering where someone died or was killed is just morbid. Following that logic, there should be memorials in the two bedrooms at my mom’s house where her parents and sister died (of old age and disease decades apart - nothing nefarious to see here…) Seems to me if you want a meaningful remembrance, instead of buying something that will be garbage in a matter of a week, why not plant a tree or make a donation to a good cause in honor of the deceased?
OK, maybe I’m just an old grouch, but I swear, if I meet a gruesome end, I will come back and haunt anyone who decides to erect a sappy memorial to me. You have been warned!!!
On a completely different topic, the FDA has approved the release of mutant mosquitos, developed by a British firm, in Florida to help combat Zika and other mosquito transmitted diseases.
Apparently the genetically modified mosquitos are designed so that their offspring die before they reach maturation and the ability to breed. In other countries where these mutant skeeters have been released they have seen up to a 90% decline in mosquito populations.
That community suffered through a lot of trauma. The search for Caylee lasted several months and involved hundreds of volunteers. Then it took a couple years for the trial to start. Reopening wounds and creating frustration at the outcome.
A simple memorial to Caylee seems appropriate. Only because of what her death means to that community.
Memorials aren’t needed for every death. Most cases don’t receive so much intense coverage.
except there is a memorial to Caylee. It’s called a grave, and it’s the appropriate place for public displays of mourning (especially mourning someone they never even knew).
In my town, there is one of these roadside memorials that’s been there for about 6 years now. The family and friends of the 19 year old kid that killed himself one night driving drunk and flipped his car, keep the memorial up to date with a large 6’ cross that’s been polyurethaned. There’s also a bench and few other things there.
The problem is that it’s directly in front of someone’s residence, between the road and the house. I don’t know the person that lives there, who knows, they may have given permission for them to do that. Call me heartless, I would not have.
Roadside memorials to vehicular deaths do have public-safety value in some cases; it is the most effective warning sign I’ve seen for ‘dangerous’ curves and intersections.
