Skeleton of infant, "Baby Locke" b./d./1924 stolen from grave - Wisconsin

[Nut44x4]

SICK!!

Grave robbery: Body stolen from western Wisconsin cemetery

Updated: 7 hrs ago 

Police in western Wisconsin are investigating a grave robbery.

The Barron County Sheriff's Office say someone stole remains from the Pioneers Rest Cemetery in Bandli County Park, which is just northeast of Cameron, Wisconsin.

"An actual gravesite had been dug up. We located the remains of a casket but no remains of the skeletal remains. So we feel the skeleton was taken from the gravesite," said Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald.

The gravesite is that of an infant, "Baby Locke," who, according to the gravestone, was born and died in 1925. Police are not yet sure of the motive of the crime: whether it's robbery or a Halloween hoax.

The crime was discovered by a passerby on Tuesday morning, but police believe it happened sometime overnight Sunday.

Officials have contacted members of the Locke family to notify them of the crime.

Meantime, neighbors and relatives of those buried at the Pioneers Rest Cemetery say they're also disturbed by what has happened.

"You feel pretty bad that they have to go and do this. It's a pretty personal thing, actually," said Jeff Granum, whose father and brother were buried in the cemetery.

Neighbors and officials say the cemetery is part of local and online lore, some of it suggesting the cemetery is haunted. Police are investigating whether the vandals may have been acting on those rumors.

Meantime, Granum wants to put that theory to rest -- once and for all.

"I've lived here most of my life, and it's not haunted by any means," he said.

http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=528199

[MuffyBee]

I can't even begin to comprehend this.   

[MuffyBee]

Brother describes grave robbers as 'low-life'

By ROBERT IMRIE , Associated Press

Last update: October 31, 2008 - 1:02 PM


WAUSAU, Wis. - The robbers who dug open a 1925 grave in northwest Wisconsin, stealing the casket with the remains of a baby, are "pretty low-life," the brother of the baby said Friday.

"I don't know who done it. I don't know why they done it. I don't know nothing about it other than it was removed," Don Locke said in a telephone interview from his home in Weyerhaeuser. "I think it is strange."

Baron County sheriff investigators believe teens opened the "Baby Locke" grave at Bandli Park Cemetery, also known as Pioneer Rest Cemetery located between Cameron and Rice Lake, late Sunday or early Monday, perhaps to recover a skeleton or bones for Halloween.

There are no suspects, but detective Dave Kuffel said evidence recovered near the grave will undergo DNA testing, perhaps providing clues about who committed the crime. The results of the testing won't be known for at least two months, he said.

"I am hoping we are going to get some tips from somebody," he said Friday.

Don Locke, the 78-year-old younger brother of Baby Locke, said the grave is in a family plot where his parents are also buried.

He believes his brother was a full-term baby who died from disease. "Right at that time, there was some cases of diphtheria and stuff going around. I suppose that is probably what it was," he said.

Investigators do not believe it took robbers long to unearth the wooden casket because the hole left behind was only about 5 feet long and 4 feet deep, Kuffel said.

"One or two people could do it relatively easily in an hour," he said. "Because it is sandy soil, you could dig very quickly."

There is little traffic near the cemetery at night and a caretaker who saw the pile of dirt initially thought it was the opening for a new grave, Kuffel said.

The casket is gone, but investigators recovered pieces of it, he said. "You could tell where someone had hit it with a shovel and broke pieces off."

The detective said he would consult with scientific experts to learn just what kind of remains would be in a casket from a baby who died 83 years ago.

Duffel said the Halloween prank theory of the crime makes sense because the robbers could only have been after a human skeleton, not things like jewelry, gold or silver.

"If you pick something that is old, you know you are going to be exposed to a skeleton," he said.

The cemetery has 80 to 100 graves, some as recent as at least 2006, the detective said.
http://www.startribune.com/local/33639324.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aU7EaDiaMDCiUZ
      

[MuffyBee]

Authorities continue hunt for grave robbers
Barron News Shield
By: Jim Bell
11/07/2008

While the Barron County Sheriff's Department and the state crime lab continue their probe as to who was responsible for excavating a grave at the Pioneer Rest Cemetery just north of Canton, relatives of "Baby Locke", the infant whose remains were disturbed by a ghoulish pre-Halloween act of vandalism, continue to express shock and disbelief.

In a news release issued last Thursday, Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald stated that a piece of material that had been shoveled out of the grave had been identified by detectives as a piece of human bone. Fitzgerald said that a forensic anthropologist made the identification and that the bone was thought to be a fragment of the temporal bone located on the inside of the skull where the ear opening is located.

"Follow up investigation is being done with this piece of bone to assist in determining how much of the skeletal remains may have been inside the wood casket after 83 years," Fitzgerald said.

Also located in the search were handles believed to have come from the outside of a wooden casket and a portion of an inscribed nameplate.
Baby Locke, a male, was born and died Jan. 7, 1925. He was buried in the family plot at the Pioneer Rest Cemetery the day after he died, and his remains lay undisturbed for 83 years. Other family members buried there include a 1-year-old brother, Leonard Locke, and his parents, Elsie G. and William Locke.

Investigators believe that Baby Locke's gravesite was disturbed Sunday evening or early Monday morning, Oct. 27. Barron County Sheriff Department investigators later stated they believe that the person or persons responsible were probably teenagers, perhaps looking to recover human remains with the advent of Halloween observance.

The excavation was dug 48 inches deep, 20 inches wide by 54 inches long, and investigators think that whoever was responsible could have dug a hole that size in an hour or less. Weather reports for that evening indicate that the exhumation occurred under a sliver of a waning moon with temperatures in the low 20s.

Don Locke, 78, a resident of Weyerhaeuser, is the younger brother of Baby Locke and Leonard Locke, who the Locke family believes died from diphtheria.

"It's disgusting, that's about all we can say for it," Don's wife, Joanne said. Joanne said that she and her husband get over to the cemetery quite often, sometimes to do volunteer work there, and that they are friends with area residents James and Esther Bandli and Del Halvorson, a member of the cemetery board.

"We were visiting with them yesterday. We were at the cemetery, at the scene. We just wish the kids would do something else, let's put it that way. I'm not sure the publicity is really what they were looking for, if it was kids. There certainly couldn't have been a vendetta against us--we don't live in the area. There is really not much to be done. Those little tykes are in heaven now anyway. "

Roger Locke, 51 of Weyerhaeuser, whose grandparents are Elsie and William Locke, said that Elsie and William farmed in the Canton area all their life. He said he learned about the incident when he was contacted by the Barron County Sheriff's Department.

Barron residents Orville and Pat Halvorson have a personal interest in the Pioneer Rest Cemetery, as they have burial plots there. "It's very upsetting," Pat Halvorson said. "It goes beyond pranks when you do something like that. Orville has a brother there who died in infancy, so we were sort of thinking of that after we heard the news."

Halvorson said that Orville's mother, father and grandparents are buried at Pioneer Rest Cemetery. "It's a pretty little cemetery, so quiet and peaceful. Orville lived just down the road from the cemetery and went to country school over there," she said. "It was a close community of Halvorsons, Bandlis and other neighbors.

"Yes, we have heard the stories about the cemetery being haunted...there was a book out that sort of implied something like that, but I think that is a bunch of baloney. "

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20188646&BRD=1132&PAG=461&dept_id=157660&rfi=6

[MuffyBee]

Detective Says 'Unlikely' Robbers Got Any Bones From 'Baby Locke's Grave
Posted: 4:18 PM Dec 8, 2008
Last Updated: 4:18 PM Dec 8, 2008
A Barron County sheriff's detective says it's unlikely robbers got any recognizable bones when they dug up a baby's 83-year-old grave.

Investigators have said they think the crime was a Halloween prank committed by teenagers.

Detective Dave Kuffel said Monday that a bag of marbles or some other tokens or trinkets may have been in Baby Locke's coffin. But forensic pathologists believe the baby's bones were so small that they had decomposed to the point of being unrecognizable.

Kuffel says there are no suspects in the late October robbery at a rural cemetery in western Wisconsin.

He says investigators are trying to determine whether a billfold found about a mile from the cemetery around the time of the theft is linked to the crime.
http://www.weau.com/home/headlines/35761364.html