Audio By Carbonatix
The Cedar Hill Pet Memorial Project has already saved southern Dallas County’s premiere pet cemetery once. A year ago, the threat came from years of neglect and a property developer, Fazel Rahmani, who didn’t realize the parcel of land he was bidding on at the steps of downtown’s George Allen courthouse was an animal resting place. “If they had told me it was a cemetery, I wouldn’t touch it,” he sheepishly told The Dallas Morning News after ending his bidding war against the nonprofit group.
Now, volunteers must cope with a second threat: vandals. They came to the newly restored burial ground last week and destroyed, damaged, or tipped over more than a dozen headstones.
“I was very upset,” Cedar Hill Pet Memorial Project founder Theresa Brandon told CBS 11. “[I] felt very violated for this park and for all the people who have trusted their animals and the remains of their animals here.”
The Morning News has a full inventory of the damage. Ginger, the dog Frank and Yukiko Bava buried there 35 years ago, suffered the worst of it, with her statue smashed to pieces and a memorial plaque ripped off and thrown in the grass. Others — Sissy, Little Butch, Poco Teka — were also disturbed.
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Cedar Hill police are investigating the vandalism, which bears all the hallmarks of being the work of bored teenagers. Whomever they are, they are in dire need of an education on the perils of messing with pet burial grounds. Never a good idea.
