There are few things more despicable than stealing from a grave site, much less a veteran’s cemetery. That’s what one family thinks is happening at the Tennessee Veteran’s Cemetery in South Knox County. Local 8 News Anchor Lauren Davis tracked down that family.

Kenneth Drinnon’s wife of 68 years who passed in February loved roses. She wrote a poem about one which was in her funeral bulletin.
So in honor of their first Mother’s Day without her, they placed a rose bush on her grave. Drinnon says, “When I went back the 9th which was yesterday, it was gone. The pot. The flower. Everything gone.”

At 91 years old, he walked the whole cemetery and didn’t find it. He checked with the cemetery office and they said they didn’t do anything with it. Drinnon says, “I was really sad because it was the first Mother’s Day since she was born that I didn’t have her with me. Just a big disappointment to us.”

Kenneth and his daughter Dena had planned on planting that rose back here at their house, but now that won’t happen. Dena Foulk says, “That’s not in my comprehension that someone would steal from a grave.”

Retired Air Force Major David Caldwell conducts funerals at the cemetery and says if someone stole it, they deserve to be shot.
David Caldwell says, “I hope you’re caught, and I hope you pay the price.”

The Tennessee Veteran’s Affairs Office in Nashville says they haven’t had any reports of stolen flowers, but folks at the cemetery say that this has happened several times recently.