Federal officials investigating military headstone patio in Missouri
(Reuters) - A Missouri homeowner who used dozens of military headstones to make a patio at his house is under investigation by the Department of Veterans Affairs to determine if he broke any laws, an agency spokesman said on Thursday.
The department learned on Friday from a U.S. Navy veteran about the patio at the home in Ozark County, Missouri, said Chris Erbe, spokesman for the National Cemetery Administration.
"We are starting to put the pieces together. We need to know where these headstones came from," Erbe said.
The homeowner told ABC television affiliate KSPR in Springfield, Missouri, that he regrets using the headstones and plans to remove them. He told the station he got them from a landfill about a decade ago.
"I ain't blaming nobody for nothing but me," the homeowner, who was not identified, told the station.
Erbe said the agency was looking into whether the man broke any laws.
He said U.S. Navy veteran Ed Harkreader, 55, visited the property in late July and posted several photos of the 150 headstones on Facebook, then reported it to federal officials.
"When I first saw them, it was like getting hit in the gut with a punch. It made me mad," Harkreader said in a telephone interview.
Harkreader, who lives in Mountain Home, Arkansas, about 30 miles from the house, said he learned of the situation from a friend and went to see the patio himself. He has since learned that the headstones may have been discarded rejects never used in a cemetery.
"There's still a name of a soldier who died," he said.
(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Eric Beech)
