Families stunned as Clinton Twp cemetery trashes ornaments from graves

CLINTON TWP, Mich. (WJBK) - Families in Clinton Township are in mourning after special religious candles, left at their loved ones' grave sites, were thrown in the trash by the cemetery.

Lindsay Wallace visits the grave of her 11-year-old son often. She lost him to cancer last summer and comes to visit him at the Cadillac memorial gardens east cemetery. She leaves items to remember him by but was stunned when she came this week to find them all removed and broken.

"He fought a tough battle with cancer. This is where I chose," Wallace said. "It's just a little infuriating that this is where you have a child's final resting place and that's how they treat it?"

She wasn't alone. Hundreds of other ornaments and religious items were also removed. Families say it's normal for groundskeepers to remove all ornaments by November 15 each year, but this year that date moved up to November 1 without notification.

"They don't have any business running a cemetery if they don't know how to have human compassion," Wallace said.

She and her mom, Cyndia, say they have buried loved ones at this cemetery for more than 40 years, and can't imagine why the policy suddenly changed.

Cyndi Wallace, grave ornaments broken

"Every year since 1973, I've done this. This year they changed the rules to November 1 and didn't tell anybody. There's one lady they had to remove, they said they were going to arrest her, she was so upset, it's her dad's birthday, she came out here and his stuff was just broken," Cyndi Wallace said.

They worry many other families still don't know what happened.

"There's other little boys cars, and stuffed animals over there. These are people's kids. We had to bury her kids here. This is not what we want to come and see," Lindsay said.

We've reached out to Cemetery management to ask for their side, they are still working on getting us a response.