Indio mother says cemetery damaged son’s headstone, disrespected grave site
An Indio woman who buried her son in the Coachella Valley Cemetery says management scratched and disrespected her son’s grave site.
Rachel Sanchez laid her 20-year-old son to rest last year. On Monday, she was distraught to find her son’s face on the headstone scratched through with a lawnmower blade.
“It makes me sick to my stomach because that’s my son and I see nothing but scratches on his face now,” Sanchez said. “Everybody here takes time to design their loved ones stone and it’s ruined. It’s blades, they ran over it with the lawnmower — blades, scratches all over his face.”
In a statement, Coachella Valley Cemetery’s management said their lawnmower scratched the headstone because Sanchez had dug a 2.5-inch-deep trench around the border of the grave, which is against their rules.
Sanchez said she did that to pull weeds out and clean up the grave for her son’s birthday. She said staff shouldn’t be running over graves at all.
“Have a little compassion bc this is our loved ones home now,” Sanchez said. “It’s their story and there’s my story but at the end of the day they did cause damage to my son’s head stone and that’s not okay.”
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