N.C. Woman Apologizes to Dead Relatives

From The Kinston (N. C.) Free Press:

Smithsonian to examine Kinston caskets

July 29, 2005
Lee Raynor
Managing Editor

An occasional breeze tickled stalks of green bamboo and crickets chirped at the night sky while Susan Burgess Hoffman sat quietly at the foot of the cemetery.

"I wanted to tell them why we were going to do what we did," she said. "I wanted them to understand."

Hoffman is the five-times great-granddaughter of Gov. Richard Caswell. Historians believe Caswell family members are buried on the hill behind the parking lot between Kinston Clinic South and the Bentley. Two graves in the old cemetery were to be excavated the following day. Hoffman wanted her long-dead relatives to know why.

[snip]

The graves were opened five years ago when [Kinston businessman Ted] Sampley offered a $1,000 reward to anyone who could find Gov. Caswell's grave.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

As a general rule, scavenger hunts should not be conducted in graveyards.

Update (Aug. 5, 2005): The graves have been opened. Find out what was inside.

Update (Sept. 8, 2005): And now they have been reburied.