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Problem Solvers contact cemetery after mix-up upsets Virginia families: 'It's very disturbing'

Posted at 4:13 PM, Oct 04, 2021
and last updated 2021-10-05 10:06:39-04

PRINCE GEORGE COUNTY, Va. -- A Virginia family said they were very upset and disturbed over what has happened at their loved one's gravesite at Southlawn Memorial Park in Prince George County.

Diane Wall said her husband Richard died almost five years ago, but the late Vietnam veteran's Bronze marker has not been placed on his grave.

"They won't put it down until my headstone is paid for," Wall said about her husband's headstone, which was furnished by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). "So they've had it in the backroom."

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So imagine her shock when friends call over the weekend to tell her Richard's headstone was out of storage and on someone else's grave.

"Very upsetting to me," she said. "Especially when people were calling me, saying they saw this on Facebook, and I didn't know anything about it."

Richard Wall's headstone was placed on the gravesite of Betty Rook.

Rook's relative, Regina Williams, discovered the mistake.

"I noticed that one of the headstones was missing," Williams said.

When she called the cemetery's office, she was told she was in the right place.

"So can you explain to me why I have this Richard Wayne Wall headstone, where my Great Aunt is supposed to be?" she asked the office workers.

Without answers, Williams posted a picture on Facebook in an effort to locate the Wall family.

"It got to me," Richard Wall's son James said. "When I first saw my dad's headstone in four years and it's on somebody else's grave."

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Both families are now looking for answers from Southlawn. Neither family is satisfied with what they're hearing.

"I'm getting excuses. I'm not getting answers, I'm getting excuses," Williams said. "It's still a lot of answers, that need to be gotten and nobody wants to give them to us."

"For somebody to take a headstone and put it on somebody else's grave, that's ridiculous," Diane Wall added.

Southlawn told the CBS 6 Problem Solvers it was working to rectify the situation ASAP.

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