PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. — Katrina Sharp dug Sunday through piles of items that were originally left behind at loved ones' graves.
"It hurts my heart. It makes me feel like we, our families don't matter,” she said.
Sharp’s mother is buried at Mountain View in Lakewood.
For eight years, ceramic angels watched over her mother's grave. This weekend, she noticed they were gone.
"It's so empty and bare, it's like they took her away again,” she said.
Sharp found the angels in a pile of belongings behind the maintenance shed with hundreds of other items, including a Vietnam veteran's hat, memory boxes and pictures of children who have died.
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"There's no life out here. When people leave things out here, it's to leave a part of their life here,” said Sharp.
Sharp's son posted about it on Facebook, where news quickly spread.
Anna Doyle saw the post online. Her goddaughter is buried at Mountain View.
"You've taken stuff that doesn't belong to you. That's ours, that's for our family members, that was for my goddaughter. She'd be 13 years old, and instead, she's here, and you took her stuff,” said Doyle.
Doyle is heartbroken.
"We've invested a lot into Mountain View, and I feel like they've completely disrespected us. We don't pay all this money to bury our loved ones here for you to desecrate their gravesite, because that's exactly what it feels like,” she said.
Mountain View told KIRO 7 the mementos are against the rules. Workers tried to warn families by posting signs on cemetery grounds.
They said some people are happy the cemetery is now clear.
Sharp says she feels betrayed.
"I just feel like we don't matter. I feel like they don't matter,” she said.
The cemetery plans to keep the belongings for at least 30 days to give families time to pick the items up.