‘We Just Want It Back’: Family Seeking Missing Mementos From Herriman Grave Site
Sep 11, 2019, 6:10 AM
HERRIMAN, Utah – A family is searching for answers after a memorial to their late father went missing from Herriman City Cemetery.
“We just want it back,” said Justin Dial, whose father passed away last month.
Dial’s father, Curt Darrin Dial, was a general contractor and served as a president over a stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So, it only seemed fitting to decorate the flower arrangement made for his passing with tools, a hat and his old scriptures.
Justin Dial’s mom decorated the grave site with the flower arrangement over the weekend. She hoped to continue this practice off and on for years to come. Instead, she returned to the cemetery Monday to find the flowers and belongings missing.
“This kind of struck a nerve with her,” Justin Dial said. “Things start to calm down and the month’s passed, and then you have something like this happen and it just kind of opens the wound again.”
“They’re just material things,” said Justin Dial’s wife, Jennifer Dial. “But there are the memories. There’s sentiment behind it.
Among the missing items was Curt Dial’s hat.
“It’s the sentimental value,” Justin Dial said. “Dad had a hat that he always wore camping.”
On Aug. 3, Curt Dial was wrapping up a quick camping trip with the younger of his eight children when he felt a pain in his chest.
“By the time they got a hold of an ambulance got them up there, he had gone,” Justin Dial said.
The Dial family isn’t sure what happened at their father’s grave site between Sunday and Monday.
“Our mind draws the worst-case scenario,” Justin Dial said.
They can only hope it was an honest mistake or “maybe some kind soul just didn’t want the spray to get ruined.”
The Dial family has reached out to the cemetery personnel and Herriman City. They also filed a report with the police department.