DESOTO COUNTY, Miss. — A woman is heartbroken after she says someone has been taking items from her husband’s burial site at the Lebanon Cemetery just outside Olive Branch.
You can’t miss Mack Callahan’s resting spot at Lebanon Cemetery. Covered with flowers, flags, pinwheels, endless precious mementos, it’s a peaceful place bringing comfort to his wife after she lost her husband of 54 years to lung cancer.
“I don’t have him no more here,” Linda Callahan said. “But he’s there, he’s mine and my children’s and my grandchildren’s and we all like to come put stuff on it.”
But Saturday, she noticed items missing from his gravesite, like a large sunflower thermometer and an angel statue. Callahan said she’s looked around the cemetery and they’re not there.
She said she’s not the only one to have things taken from the cemetery. One of her relatives even put up a sign at another grave saying, “God sees what’s happening in the dark and the light,” after flowers kept being removed.
Callahan believes in all the items stolen total about $100, but it’s not about the money.
“You’re hurting people. You’re hurting the loved ones that’s left here on Earth to sit and talk and be with you,” she said. “I think that’s about the lowest thing you can do.”
Her message to those responsible: “If you need something, leave me a message. I will help you,” she said. “I’ll help anybody. Just don’t take what I put on my husband’s grave.”
Callahan said a deputy told her they will try to patrol the area more frequently.
