Mystery Surrounds Headstones Used For Patio At Manteca Home
MANTECA (CBS13) - A dumpster full of discarded headstones sits in front of a home in Manteca neighborhood. Owner unearthed hundreds of them used to make a patio. But the mystery is how they got there.
Workers cleaning the rental property noticed someone dug up the patio, revealing what was really used for concrete.
"It looked like they were here for a long time," said Daniel Lopez, who unearthed the headstones. "Some of them you couldn't even see because they were so covered in grass and dirt."
Someone placed what appears to be headstones facedown as concrete for the backyard patio.
"It's pretty weird," said Lopez.
About 300 hundred possible grave markers have been unearthed.
"I thought it was creepy. I don't know why anyone would want to keep one of those," said neighbor Ernie Saavedre. "That's interfering with somebody's past."
People on the block suspect the original owner installed the patio decades ago. That's why they can't believe no one noticed the bizarre backyard decoration, until now.
"They are pretty legit tombstones. They have the dates the names. I can see a lot of them -- definitely disturbing," said neighbor Stephen Cortes.
Most have final resting dates of the early sixties and some are almost a hundred years old. At least one of the stones appears to be a cast off, with the name David misspelled. But the mystery remains: where did the headstones come from?
"They should have given the option to family to take them or take them somewhere else. I don't know to recycle concrete or anything like that," said Cortes.
The property owner decided to remove the headstones because neighbors don't want to see them, and it's causing problems when showing to renters.
