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Pet Cemetery


It’s back…

It looks like that odd and disturbing story about the Rosa Bonheur Memorial Park in Elkridge is still unresolved and it isn’t going away. In what may or may not be a Halloween tie-in, Tim Prudente and Stokely Baksh of the Baltimore Banner have written a piece which dredges up the disturbing details.

It begins like this: 

Questions linger about the graves dug up at Rosa Bonheur Memorial Park

Off U.S. Route 1 in Howard County, in the shadow of new townhomes and industrial-style apartments, a stone wall hides a forgotten little park.

The lawn here is pockmarked with depressions where, year after year, the bronze plaques are sinking deeper in the dirt. These are the graves.

There’s not much else. A battered old house, a collapsed barn, watchful stone buddhas. A black cat creeps through the tree line (honest). Stephen King might have written about this place.

This is not a bare bones recitation of the facts. The article presents both the current state of affairs and the history of the place in an extremely effective use of storytelling techniques which left me not simply better informed but also engaged in the outcome. If you are able to read it, I’d be interested in your take. It’s not lurid or over the top but I do think it helps you to put yourself into the situation and care about what will happen next.

This is not the first we’ve heard of this story. I first saw it discussed on social media, then it began to get picked up by local news outlets, for example: 

December 26, 2023 

Howard County desecration leaves community members saddened, Katie Culbertson, WBAL TV News

June 24, 2024 

Questions loom over historic cemetery’s future following desecration of graves, Mallory Sofastaii, WMAR 2 News Baltimore 

And now here we are in October of 2024. 

October 29, 2024 

Mystery and scandal haunt pet cemetery on coveted Howard County land, Tim Prudente and Stokely Baksh, Baltimore Banner 

In summary - - 

Who: ??? 

What: graves dug up, headstones defaced

When: December, 2023

Where: Rosa Bonheur Memorial Park

Why: ??? 

As we approach the one year mark of the event it looks like we still don’t know who did this or why. Beyond that I’m not sure we know the future of the site, either. A location with eleven and a half acres in Elkridge appears to be of interest to somebody. 

If someone just gave me a piece of land that big in Elkridge I’d put a highschool on it. But I don’t think that the people who are using are exactly done with it yet. 

What do you think?


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