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Arkansas man, 78, arrested for defacing gravesite of former neighbor with dead animals: police
Published August 17, 2020
An elderly Arkansas man was arrested for allegedly placing 16 dead animals at the gravesite of a former neighbor over the course of several months, causing damage from at least one of the carcasses, according to a police report.
Bentonville resident Joseph Stroud, 78, was taken into police custody on Aug. 10 and charged with defacing objects of public respect, which is a felony. Stroud allegedly vandalized the headstone of a former neighbor and rival farmer with more than a dozen dead animals on separate instances starting at the end of May, according to an affidavit from the Pea Ridge Police Department.
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Relatives of the man, Fred Allen McKinney, went to police in late July after they repeatedly found carcasses left at his Pea Ridge headstone, according to the police report.
“Joseph Stroud and Fred McKinney had farms next to each other with a shared boundary for several years,” the document states. A relative told police the pair “never got along with each other and there was even a lawsuit between them she thought Joseph had lost.”
Pea Ridge Cemetery (Google Street View)
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“At first, they thought it was just a coincidence and thought maybe the animals were consuming the fake floral and dying,” the police report states. “When they began finding more dead animals, they realized it wasn’t just a coincidence, someone was placing the dead animals there purposefully.”
McKinney’s relatives positioned surveillance cameras in the area surrounding his headstone. They discovered that Stroud had, on at least one occasion, allegedly dressed in women’s clothing and a woman’s grey-haired wig to place the carcass, police report states.
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In all, the bloodstains and resulting damage allegedly cost $2,529.45 to fix.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/arkansas-arrested-defacing-gravesite-dead-animals