Washington Co. D.A. Opens Investigation Into Financially-Struggling Charleroi Cemetery
CHARLEROI (KDKA) -- Milton Kubik's entire family - father, sister, mother-in-law, aunt and uncle - are buried in Charleroi Cemetery, but you can't see their headstones because of the overgrown grass.
"It's frustrating, you know. Nobody knows what's going on," said Kubik.
Like Homestead Cemetery and others, Charleroi is no longer being maintained. The grass grows tall and garbage is strewn along the pathways.
Now, Washington County District Attorney Gene Vittone has launched a criminal investigation.
"It needs to be taken care of, and that's where we're coming from," says Vittone. "With cemeteries there are perpetual care funds. We need to know what happened to that money."
With the sale of cemetery plots, a certain percentage should be dedicated for perpetual care, the future upkeep of the graves and the cemetery.
Current owners, James and Anna Price, have declined to be interviewed on camera, but have told KDKA's Andy Sheehan that when they bought the cemetery last year, the fund had been drained and they no longer have money to maintain the graves.
The cemetery has changed hands a few times the past decade and Vittone's office is digging though the paper trail.
"We're in the process of obtaining those papers and seeing what happened to that money," he said.
In the meantime, folks like Dave Shaver are mowing the grass twice a month and tending to their own family plots.
"It's a shame, you walk around and see A to Z conditions and nobody cares," says Shaver.
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