Over 90 graves matching the military markers found at a former funeral home have been located by the Richmond County Coroner’s Office.
Coroner Mark Bowen said is office will continue trying to locate the rest of the grave sites. He thanked the community for reaching out to help.
“I am thankful for the help that has been offered by the community, business and my staff who has work very hard to find where these markers go,” Bowen said in an email.
In an updated list, only 20 markers are left to be linked with a grave site, as of Thursday. A list of 114 markers was released Tuesday.
Bowen said the markers will be delivered to the cemeteries for placement on graves in the near future. He confirmed that the grave sites checked by the coroner’s office had no markers on them.
The markers were found May 18 by a Richmond County Marshal’s Office deputy at the former Dent’s Undertaking Establishment before being moved to the Coroner’s Office on Monday. The markers date back to 1967 and includes soldiers who served from World War I to Vietnam.
The funeral home on D’Antignac Street was shut down in 2009 and the former owner, Thomasina Ketch, died of natural causes in 2014.
Family members of veterans who used Dent’s and are buried locally without a grave marker can contact the coroner’s office at (706) 821-2382.
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© 2019 The Augusta Chronicle (Augusta, Ga.)
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