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DETROIT (FOX 2) – Since April, families have feared the remains of loved ones may not be in the right place at Gethsemane Cemetery in eastern Detroit.
Detroit Police, FBI, Michigan State Police and others are digging up graves to make sure bodies are where they’re supposed to be.
Police exhume bodies in East Side Detroit Cemetery to see if marked graves are accurate
Since April, families have feared that the remains of their loved ones may not be in the right place at Gethsemane cemetery in eastern Detroit.
Police say it started when a family exhumed a loved one, but searches revealed the wrong body. After reviewing the files, investigators determined that the gravestone was a remote site.
After reviewing the measurements and markers, police have questions about 20 graves. So far, they have unearthed seven and plan to finish the rest on Tuesday.
A family member says he is grieving again.
“There were bodies there two years ago … five years ago, I don’t know if there are bodies there now,” said Mr Wood, a relative with relatives are buried there. “It’s a painful feeling to bring a family member out of the grave. Once you lay them down, you want them to rest in peace.”
“It is very important for the community with the people who have loved ones there to make sure that their loved ones are where they are supposed to be,” said Cmdr. Eric Decker, DPD Major Crimes.
Police said six burial sites were correct and the April one was at one site. Investigators say this appears to be sloppy record keeping by the old management company the city of Detroit employed to manage the cemetery.
As to why the discrepancies are only appearing now, DPD says the funerals have not been witnessed.
“A lot of them were witnessless burials for some reason,” Decker said. “So the family comes in later and they expect their loved one to be in some relationship with it.”
We were told that the management company had been changed to ensure that this never happened again. Police say so far it does not appear that a crime has been committed. Investigators say it is likely a communication problem.
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