Let us be in prayer: The grisly discovery of mass graves in a Texas cemetery believed to contain the bodies of immigrants has raised questions about burial methods for bodies discovered along the U.S.-Mexican border.
The discovery was made at Sacred Heart Burial Park in the town of Falfurrias, about 79 miles north of the border, in the last two weeks. The multiple bodies — so far there is no exact number — were found by a team of students led by Baylor University anthropologist Lori Baker and Krista Latham, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Indianapolis, as part of a multi-year effort to identify immigrants who have died in the area near the border.
The team unearthed remains in trash bags, shopping bags, body bags or without a container at all, according to the Corpus Christi Caller Times.
In all, 110 unidentified people were exhumed from the cemetery in 2013. There have been another 52 graves found so far this summer, but because some remains were stored together, more work will be needed to determine exactly how many bodies have been recovered.
The finds have left state officials demanding answers.
“It’s an absolute disgrace and disrespectful,” State Representative Terry Canales, who represents the district in which Falfurrias is located, said. “No matter what side of the borders they are from, these are human beings.
“It’s no excuse to disrespect someone in the way these bodies were.”
Canales added that he has filed a public information request to gain access to Brooks County’s expenditures to see how much was spent to bury the bodies and if anyone was acting improperly.
“It will give us a clear indication,” he said. “Without question there was some sort of fraudulent act.”
