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Police: Historic Tombstones Not Missing After All

WARREN (WWJ) - It turns out that five commemorative gravestone markers, reported missing from a Civil War-era cemetery in Warren, were not stolen after all.

Warren Police tell WWJ Newsradio 950 markers, that were supposedly missing from the Warren Union Cemetery, were actually removed by the City's Historical Commission amid an ongoing dispute with the cemetery's caretaker, who had reported them missing.

Police said they're still sorting out the "he said, she said" accounts, but have confirm that the stones are secure and in storage.

The caretaker, Wesley Arnold, was surprised by this new information.

"That's the very first I have heard of this.  I'm on the Warren Historical Commission ... we've taken no vote to remove any stones. It doesn't make sense at all," said Arnold.

Functioning as a burial ground since 1845, the cemetery on Chicago Road near Ryan is the oldest in the city.  According to the Michigan Department of State Bureau of History, 325 of the graves date from the nineteenth century. Many of Warren's former public officials and prominent citizens are buried there.

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