Grave Monument/Headstone returned to Blue Springs Cemetery

DATE & TIME: 12-11-2017 @ 1450       

LOCATION: Highway 4 / SW 45^th Road and Blue Springs Cemetery          

OFFENSE: Grave Monument/Headstone returned to Blue Springs Cemetery

CASE #: 2017-6738

A highway maintenance supervisor from the Nebraska Department of Transportation on 12-11-2017 notified an investigator with the Gage County Sheriff’s Office that his crew, while working on an embankment near a bridge on Highway 4 east of SW 45^th Road had located several pieces of a headstone monument for a grave. There was a partial name and some decorative carving on the pieces, but no complete last name or date of death on the inscribed on the pieces. The investigator responded to the scene and obtained information related to the incident and photographed the scene and the headstone pieces.

On 12-13-2017 the investigator followed up with Christine Huls at Speidell Monuments in Beatrice to determine if the monument could be identified and who the pieces of the monument. Huls was able to immediately recognize the art work on the monument, retrieve the sales record of who had purchased the monument in April of 1991, and that the monument had been placed at a family plot in the Blue Springs Cemetery.

Huls and the investigator contacted persons associated with the Blue Springs Cemetery and were informed the headstone monument had been damaged sometime around the year 2000, however there was no one interred in the grave.

The Gage County Sheriff’s Office investigator returned the four pieces of the headstone to a Blue Springs Cemetery official who stated he would let the cemetery sexton know about the recovery and proper steps could be taken to contact the owner. 

At this time, it is believed the headstone monument was damaged around the year 2000 and put along Highway 4 around the same time. No criminal charges are being pursued.

Sheriff Millard “Gus” Gustafson #903

Investigator T. Hanson #90310