Could cemeteries be a new hotspot for crime?
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — It is the last place to visit loved ones who have passed on and the last place you would expect to be a place of crime. Cemeteries are the latest target areas for thieves, and victims say they are fed up.
Debra Bowers makes regular visits to her mother’s gravesite.
On December 8, she and her fiancé, Gary Tillman arrived at Memphis Memory Gardens on Raleigh-LaGrange Road in the early afternoon.
Bowers and Tillman were visiting her mother’s grave, and after a few minutes, they were on their way. Shortly after leaving, she was alerted to trouble.
Her bank and credit card companies were texting her with fraud alerts.
“I grabbed my purse and looked in and my wallet was gone. And I looked at him I said ‘oh my god.’ I said ‘Somebody has gotten into the truck and stole my wallet. Now they’re using the cards,'” she said.
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She said the thief appeared to be going on a spending spree.
“[They were] at the Lowe’s on South Perkins. But they also went to Footlocker and they also went to Exxon gas, trying out the card to see if they could get it to work, which it did evidently, because they went to Lowe’s on the last stuff. But they hit Lowe’s up for several thousand dollars with three of my cards,” said Bowers.
She and Tillman realized her wallet had been stolen while they were at Memphis Memory Gardens.
“I never saw anybody walk into the grounds here. And so, how they snuck in? But we know for a fact that her purse was in the car, we know that the wallet was in the car, because we just verified that a few minutes before. And sometime while we were here, it was gone. So it was quick. They got in quick, and they got out quick,” said Tillman.
Bowers admitted that she left her car door unlocked. That appears to have been all the thieves needed.
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“If we go somewhere we lock our doors, but here, 25 feet away, the truck’s right here behind us, it’s quiet. We didn’t lock the doors,” she said.
Bowers says the cemetery was relatively quiet when they visited, but she does remember something.
“There was one certain car going back and forth. You know, when you’re busy you see them. You look, but you don’t pay attention,” said Bowers.
After becoming a victim where she least expected it, Bowers filed a police report and is now trying to get her affairs back in order.
Not only did she lose her credit cards and cash, she has been in a constant flurry trying to close accounts and still keep up with payments due.
“[I lost] my credit cards, all debit cards, my driver’s license, all my insurance cards, and Medicare cards, so my bills are getting delayed because I can’t get into money. It’s been the biggest mess,” said Bowers.
Bowers went to the Next Door neighborhood app to warn other people and help them avoid what she has been going through.
That’s when the floodgate opened up with others telling her they too had been victims of crime while they visited grave sites of loved ones across the city.
One person wrote:
“Yep, it happened to my wife last year at the cemetery on Germantown pkwy putting flowers on my daughters grave.”
Another wrote:
“Mine happened inside Memphis and I can honestly say they are working on my case.”
A hundred or more responded, saying the same thing happened with them, Bowers said.
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WREG reached out to Memphis Memory Gardens about the theft. We were told the manager will get back to us.
We also asked Memphis police about the frequency of these cemetery thefts.
They say Debra Bowers’ case remains under investigation, and after searching back over the last year, they found only one other theft from a vehicle at Memphis Memory Gardens on Raleigh LaGrange.
“But all I can say to people now is if something happens to you, don’t be embarrassed. Report it so this way it could be something done about what’s going on,” said Bowers. “I’m sick of the crime. I don’t want to be a victim anymore. I just want something done. I want to feel safe when I go to cemetery, go to the store, shopping or whatever.”
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