KTBS 3 News | Shreveport, LA: ArkLaTex News - Was vandalized grave a victim of ghost tour?

Posted: Nov 12, 2009 5:38 PM
Updated: Nov 13, 2009 12:21 PM

A vandal is believed to have damaged a 19th-century tomb at Shreveport's Oakland Cemetery.

The grave, located on the southeast edge of the cemetery just outside downtown, is that of 22-year-old Cora Lee Wilson. She lies next to members of her family.

Bricks at the foot of the tomb have been moved, exposing Wilson's iron casket.

Historian Gary Joiner, a member of the Oakland Cemetery board, suspects Wilson's grave has fallen victim to a ghost tour guide.

Those tours are conducted around Halloween. Tour guides sometimes will move bricks to expose the casket, Joiner said.

Oakland was home to some of Shreveport's founders, including 16 mayors, and more than 700 victims of the yellow fever epidemic. Joiner is infuriated by the damage done to someone's final resting place.

"It violates graves. It's wrong on so many different levels," he said. "if somebody is making money off of this, they ought to be ashamed."

Joiner said the Oakland board plans to seal the tomb to keep this from happening again. They also plan to file a police report over the vandalism. The person who damaged the grave could face criminal charges.

The tornado that blew through downtown week before last hit part of Oakland Cemetery, knocking down 11 trees and damaging more than 100 gravestones, Joiner said.

Neutral + − !

Doc at Nov 12th 2009 6:12 PM

Those bricks were in a makeshift pile a year ago, this isn't new.

tommy at Nov 12th 2009 8:46 PM

its been that way for over 20 years

Eylene at Nov 13th 2009 7:20 AM

Anyone who has walked Oakland Cemetery through  the last few years will tell you that Cora Lee has been viewing  downtown Shreveport from her assigned resting place in the historic cemetery with no obstructions .   Long before the ghost tours started, attempts have been made to stack the bricks back in place in a non-permanent way.

Venturing into the cemetery quite often I would notice these attempts as far back as 7 years ago.  But be it nature, the locals or Cora Lee the next time I visited the cemetery the bricks would be dispersed along the ground at the foot of her grave, once again giving her a beautiful view of our great city.

The ghost tours are a more recent activity at the cemetery and Cora Lee has had an open grave long before they ventured into Oakland?s gates.  It is shame we would put blame on a group without knowing, especially when these tours bring attention to a local treasure that has been long forgotten by most Shreveporters.

Shreve Town Ghost Walker at Nov 16th 2009 9:32 AM

I own and operate the Shreve Town Ghost Walk, and Oakland Cemetery Tour.  No attempt has been made by Channel 12 to contact me on the accusations made by Gary Joiner, so I have decided to post this.

Nothing could be farther from the truth by what has been said.  Cora Lee's grave is probably the result of a poor mixture of mortar, weather, and possibly plant root invasion, as is happening to the crypt next to hers.  The crypt was in bad condition when I began the Cemetery Tours in 2007, and prior to anyone arriving, I would continually RESTACK the bricks (no one knows this, because I was alone).  I soon realized that someone was tearing the bricks down.  For a short period of time a few pieces of plywood were placed on top of the missing part of the cover, but they soon disappeared.  I continually restacked the bricks on the grave to keep it as intact as possible until about mid-summer in 2008, and I finally gave up and haven't touched the bricks since.

Vandalism is rampant in Oakland, as Gary is well aware of.  I have worked by my self, at my own expense in Oakland, clearing invasive brush, to protect graves, and righted numerous heavy grave markers, only to return the next week to find them pushed down again.

I have been associated with the Oakland Cemetery Preservation Society since its re-establishment in 2007.  I consider Gary Joiner's uninformed accusations insulting and slanderous.  To my knowledge, the only operating "Ghost Walk" in Oakland is the one Gary is in charge of.

Steve R. Smith
Shreve Town Ghost Walk & Oakland Cemetery Tour