BOONE COUNTY — A local family is reaching out for help saying the condition of a Boone County cemetery is unacceptable. Family members said they're having a hard time finding out if or when repairs will be made.
In part of Lincoln Memory Gardens in Boone County, families are finding headstones out of the ground, other stones sinking into it.
"Some of the stones had fallen right down in the grave," Kathleen Haddock, visiting a family member at the cemetery, said. "They've been buried, driven over."
Wood boards cover several gravesites and the land is uneven.
"I've never seen a cemetery in this condition," Haddock said.
Haddock said she spends a lot of time in cemeteries. She loves studying genealogy and came here over the weekend to bring flowers to her father-in-law's grave. She said she was not prepared to see the land like this, especially ahead of Memorial Day weekend.
"My fear is that families will come this weekend and they will stumble upon this," Haddock said. "They could have traveled you know 100 miles for the day to come and find a family member and then to walk up and find that."
Haddock has tried to contact management but to no avail.
"I really think there is something major wrong and I think families should be contacted," Haddock said.
RTV6 reached out to the management company for answers. Officials at the management company said they are aware that several areas of the cemetery need work. They said they've had a lot of burials recently due to the COVID-19 pandemic and rain has caused some flooding.
New staff members have been hired and the manager said he hopes to have repairs done before the weekend.
"Hopefully save someone's heart from being broken," Haddock said.
This is not the first time there have been issues reported at Lincoln Memory Gardens. In 2018, a family found their loved one had been buried in the wrong plot. Ten years before that, the cemetery operator there pleaded guilty to theft and fraud. He was accused of misusing millions of dollars from this and other Indiana cemeteries.
