Family finds their loved one's casket unearthed, upside down
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A Mississippi family is mourning again after they say a storm toppled a tree, unearthing their grandfather's grave and turning his casket upside-down.
Tracey Lane tells WHBQ-TV she recently found the casket of her grandfather, David Ira Lane Sr., lifted from the ground and the headstone in the air at a cemetery in Holly Springs. The station's video shows relatives reaching up to the broken casket in a tangle of roots from the overturned tree. The family believes it's been that way for two weeks.
"That's a whole casket. I don't know if we have a head in here," Lane said. "I don't know what I can see in here, but it's not fair."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Lane says the thought of having to re-bury her grandfather is agonizing.
"We didn't bring him here in dirt," Lane said. "We brought him here in a casket. We want his pieces back together." The station reports her grandfather was buried 50 years ago.
Ben Cole, a deacon trustee of Hopewell Church No. 1, arrived as a news crew was interviewing relatives and began cutting up the fallen tree. Cole says cemetery caretakers were working to try and find the best way to fix the damage.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I know he's no longer living, among the living," said another granddaughter, Diane Smith. "He's not living. However, this is unacceptable to the dead. They should've done something by now."