ASHEBORO, N.C. — Several people with loved ones buried at the Randolph Memorial Park in Asheboro are livid over the state of the park Thursday morning.
Many have taken to social media to post several photos and videos showing damage to graves and cemetery grounds.
The cemetery is riddled with deep tire marks. Some of the tire marks are seen over grave markers, some of which were depressed into the ground. Many say the blame lies with the property's maintenance crew who are not using plywood panels when they have to drive onto the burial grounds.
"Unfortunately my aunt, who was basically my best friend, is buried out here at Randolph Memorial. But look, somebody out here is being disrespectful and coming out here to a grave and driving all over the dead people. Like do you not have a heart." said Jennifer Lester in a video posted to her Facebook page.
"This is ridiculous! Who in their right mind is going to come out to a graveyard and put thrash all over dead people? Do you guys not have any respect at all? Are you guys serious? Oh my gosh, I am so mad. If my aunt's grave looks anything like this I'm coming after someone," said Lester fighting back tears.
Lester also pointed out overflowing trash cans.
"This is just ridiculous! This world has no respect for nobody, not even dead people. What if this was your mom out here, what if this is your dad? It doesn't matter who's out here but have some freaking respect. This is ridiculous. Don't ride over these dead people," she said.
"OMG! That's uncalled for. Do people not understand how much it cost to bury people? Headstones alone are expensive and yet they have them out of the ground and run over. If they keep doing it, it will break over time," posted Elizabeth Lunsford.
One of the windows to the truck of a groundskeeper was broken by an unknown person. Law enforcement officials were on the property to investigate the damage.
Representatives from StoneMor Inc., managers of the Randolph Memorial Park, would not explain the cause for the damage but there has been ongoing maintenance work on the property.
The company's representative sent this statement;
"Randolph Memorial Park is aware of park conditions and are working on plans to properly resolve these issues. We have extra crews scheduled this weekend to get everything cleaned up. We will do our best to work around the rain," said Marty Good, a senior director at StoneMor Inc.
On its website, the property managers also stated that the cemetery is preparing for its annual spring cleaning in March.
"For the majority of our parks, we are asking that all our families please remove all grave decorations prior to March 1. Any item not removed will be held by our staff until March 14 to be picked up before being discarded," the notice read.
Crews were seen Thursday morning covering up some of the damage with plywood panels.
