Inset: Matthew Fortner (West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation). Background: The Baylous Cemetery in Salt Rock, W. Va. (WSAZ/YouTube).
A gravedigger in West Virginia has been arrested for allegedly desecrating an infant’s grave and leaving the child’s corpse out in the open at the cemetery where he worked — with the baby’s clothes and casket being “thrown over a hill” by him — after he accidentally disturbed the boy’s resting place while digging up another plot, according to police and 911 callers.
“We were here decorating graves for Easter,” a female caller can be heard saying in a 911 call obtained by local NBC affiliate WSAZ. “It’s like someone dug a grave up and there’s a baby,” a man says. “The casket’s thrown over a hill.”
Matthew Fortner, 49, was arrested Wednesday by the Cabell County Sheriff’s Office and booked on charges of displacement of a dead body and intentionally withholding information about the disturbance of “human, skeletal remains.” Online court records show he has pleaded not guilty and has a bond set of $5,000 for the March 27 incident.
“This is not what I expected to find,” the female caller said that day, per WSAZ. “We found baby clothes,” the woman added.
Cabell County Sheriff Doug Adams told WSAZ his office was shaken up by the discovery at Baylous Cemetery in Salt Rock and worked “tirelessly” to find out who was responsible after first reporting what happened last week.
“It’s bothered them and weighed on everyone’s minds,” Adams said.
When police first got the call and started investigating what happened, it was unclear whether the baby — described as an infant boy who was just a few days old at the time of his death — had been brought to the cemetery or dug up by someone.
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“We scoured that entire cemetery,” Adams said. “Looking to see if there were any graves that had been disturbed and we couldn’t find any. So [we were] wondering if that child was buried in that cemetery or if it was brought from somewhere else.”
According to WSAZ, the baby in question passed away in 1982 and was buried next to a plot that Fortner was digging up for another burial. The complaint states that he chose to dump the child over a hillside near his grave site instead of reburying him. The boy’s casket also appeared to have been allegedly broken by Fortner.
“It takes a sick individual, in my opinion, to desecrate a grave and mess with a corpse, period,” Adams said.
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