On Wednesday, West Virginia police arrested a gravedigger for displacing an infant boy who was buried in 1982.
Last week, an individual phoned 911 after stumbling upon a baby while placing decorations at Baylous Cemetery in Salt Rock. An inquiry revealed that Matthew Fortner, 49, who had been hired by the cemetery, was excavating a burial site for another person when he unearthed the infant’s coffin and negligently disposed of it on a slope, as reported by WOWK.
The infant, estimated to be only a few months old, was located in the center of the cemetery. The damaged casket of the baby was found nearby, on the hillside. Details from a criminal report indicated that fragments of the infant’s destroyed coffin matched pieces discovered inside the grave that Fortner had reportedly excavated.
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WCHS reported that the baby boy’s right arm and right foot were removed, but it’s unclear how that occurred.
Sheriff Doug Adams of Cabell County remarked, “He [Fortner] was in the process of digging a grave adjacent to the plot of this baby, and during the excavation, he uncovered the casket belonging to this infant. However, instead of taking appropriate action, he callously discarded it over the hillside,” according to West Virginia MetroNews. Adams also mentioned, “We are currently awaiting further evidence from the laboratory and the state medical examiner’s office.”
According to WSAZ, Fortner has a murder conviction for which he was sentenced to life with mercy in 1999. He was paroled in 2008, two years after his murder conviction was set aside and he was sentenced to attempted first-degree robbery.
Fortner is charged with disinterment or displacement of a dead body or part thereof, damage to a cemetery or graveyard, and violating protection of human skeletal remains, grave artifacts and grave markers. His bond was set at $105,000.
Fortner is due in court on April 10.
[Feature Photo: WOWK]
