Headstones found dumped in abandoned lot

ATLANTA - Investigators are working to figure out a mystery of how headstones you'd expect to find a cemetery popped up in a wooded lot in Atlanta.

Now they need your help.

The headstones are supposed to be an everlasting tribute to the deceased, but photos shared by the Atlanta police shows that someone trashed them in a partially cleared wooded lot on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, a hangout stop for the homeless.

"We're not sure how they got there or how long they've been there," Sergeant John Chafee said. "It looks like they have been there a considerable amount of time.

The stones were found in the area off Bolton Road in the Adamsville community on Aug. 1, when someone discovered them among the tires and trash and notified police.

"This is not something  we have seen before. Typically, we'll have headstones that a desecrated or stolen, but here we don't know," Chafee said.

Because no victim has come forward so far, investigators can't even say if a crime has taken place.

"It could be something as simple as illegal dumping," Chafee said. "We don't know."

One headstone belongs to Walter Harold McDonald Sr. and says she died in 1972.

Police are now trying to identify family members to see if they can figure out where these stones originated.