Just in time for Halloween: A freshly dug grave at a Beaufort Co. cemetery. But no funeral
Deacon Henry Bolden was surprised this week to find a freshly dug grave at Lowbottom Community Cemetery in Okatie. He’s the groundskeeper there, and he knows the comings and goings.
He knew nothing about this one.
There hadn’t been any funerals. No undertakers had come by the previous two weeks. As caretaker of the cemetery, and considering how frequently he’s there, Bolden said the new mound was a mystery.
And it was five days before Halloween, when ghosts are said to appear.
On Monday, Bolden called the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office. He was worried there might be a body in the grave.
“It’s a community grave. No one is digging without my permission,” Bolden told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette. “It kind of freaked me out.”
By the water
Before calling the police, Bolden said he talked to the family who owned the plot. They said they had nothing to do with the grave.
A majority of the families in the neighborhood who worship at St. Luke’s Baptist Church on Snake Road are buried in Lowbottom Cemetery, said Rev. Renty Kitty.
Kitty, the church’s pastor, has presided over many funerals at Lowbottom Cemetery. The site, he said, is significant to the Gullah culture of the area.
It’s split into two. One section of graves sits on a hill; the other is next to the Chechessee Creek.
“Graveyards close to the ocean represent the souls going out and being with the Lord,” said Kitty.
The cemetery section by the river is where Bolden discovered the freshly dug grave.
Discovery
Deputies with the Sheriff’s Office arrived at the cemetery around 4:30 p.m. Monday.
Later, the agency asked the coroner’s office to come by, and officers also brought a cadaver dog, according to Maj. Bob Bromage.
The coroner and dog investigated the grave and found no body in it, he said.
Bromage said it appears that a funeral home started digging in the wrong spot.
The grave-digging is still under investigation, he said, though it doesn’t seem like anything criminal went on.
Bolden, groundskeeper for the past three years, said there are many graves on the property, and a lot of them have no headstone.
But on this one, Bolden came to the same conclusion as police.
“It looked like somebody started to put something there and changed their minds.”
