Police Say Connecticut Cemetery Moved Graves for New Ones

A grisley discovery last month led to a hearing against a Bridgeport cemetery manager this week.

CTpost.com reports that after receiving numerous complaints about the state of Park Cemetery on Lindley Street, police detectives, Jorge Cintron and Kimberly Biehn, were assigned to investigate. At a hearing yesterday, they told Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Stewart that they found human remains and casket pieces strewn about in the woods of the cemetery and dozens of old headstones moved to allegedly bury recently deceased people stacked on top of old plots.

There was fresh soil over old headstones and they were in the process of building an access road through the stones. In the woods we found old headstones and human bones that had just been thrown around. - Police Detective Jorge Cintron

The manager of Park Cemetery, Dale LaPrade, was subpoenaed but did not show up for the hearing held yesterday (October 2) in Superior Court. According to the article, Detectives Citron and Biehn found records scattered all over the cemetery office floor and that many headstones did not match the graves that they rested upon. They also told Judge Stewart that employees were instructed by LaPrade to discard old remains and coffins to make it seem as though the plots were new and uninhabited so that they could be sold.

An employee of a local monument company, Lisa Burghardt, also told Judge Stewart that the local monument company that she worked for received numerous complaints from family of the deceased who claimed that a headstone was on the wrong grave.

It was like a game of musical chairs, we never knew where the graves were, she would just say, ‘Put it over here, it looks like a good spot,’ but she wouldn’t even know if that was the right grave site. We wanted to complain to someone but there was no one to complain to.” Lisa Burhardt - Monument Company Employee

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