TROTWOOD — If people are not receiving the services they’ve paid Bear Creek Cemetery to perform or fulfill, whoever is operating the facility should be charged criminally, state Rep. Phil Plummer told News Center 7.
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The former Montgomery County sheriff and more than two dozen people gathered at the Trotwood Community Center on Thursday afternoon to file formal complaints with the Trotwood Police Department to have services not rendered and other issues investigated.
“There’s a lot of pieces to this puzzle,” Plummer told News Center 7 Reporter Taylor Robertson. “We are making progress.”
Robertson has been covering issues about Bear Creek Cemetery, also known as Bear Creek-Hillgrove Cemetery, on North Union Road, for nearly two months. Some of the issues include complaints about uncut grass, a headstone being left abandoned outside the office doors, burial lots that were paid for and left incomplete and more.
Plummer said he attended the meeting to gather evidence. Trotwood Police Chief Erik Wilson said that with the number of complaints, “it was simply easier for the police department to have everybody meet out here [at the community center] and fill out statements.
“Everybody is breaking out their receipts and showing where they’ve been, you know, ripped off basically,” Plummer said.
One of the complaints involves people who said they have paid roughly $600 for a footer (a concrete block or slab that is placed at the bottom of a grave).
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“And the people running the cemetery never performed the service [installed them], so now they have their tombstones with no footer,” Plummer said, noting that he believes the people who operate the cemetery don’t know where their documents are.
“Who’s buried where? Who paid for what? And I talked to a lady last night... she purchased 12 spots in the mausoleum. . . . They’ve used two of them. So where are those records?” Plummer asked rhetorically.
“People have ripped them off... they need to be held accountable and charged criminally,” he said, also noting that he met with Trotwood Mayor Mary McDonald last week and that Montgomery County Prosecutor Mat Heck Jr. is aware of what’s going on at Bear Creek.
“I just feel sorry for the people that’s been taken advantage of, you know? They’re sad, graves are sinking, headstones are sinking and we’ll get it fixed,” Plummer said.
Shannon Bangert, one of the people who filed a complaint with police, said, “We want to bring the players to the table and make sure they’re held accountable for what went on up there. . . what they have not done.”
Bangert, who has family members and friends interred at Bear Creek, suggests that the community form a board to run the cemetery.
“That way no one person will ever run it back into the ground,” he said.
Plummer, Bangert and Chief Wilson all agree that the road to addressing the issues with the cemetery will be a long one.
Wilson is asking anyone who feels they have been a victim of fraud or theft at Bear Creek Cemetery to come to police headquarters and fill out a statement so complaints can be investigated thoroughly.
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