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State panel to review handling of graves at Waco museum site
PHOTOS
A Texas state legislative committee has ordered an inquiry into the handling of graves that were discovered and exhumed for the expansion of the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco.
The House Committee on Culture, Recreation and Tourism has appointed a special subcommittee that will hold hearings on the case.
The subcommittee will try to determine whether state and federal laws are being followed as the expansion work continues, and whether current policies to protect graves need to be strengthened, said the subcommittee’s chairwoman, Donna Howard, D-Austin.
The Culture, Recreation and Tourism Committee oversees the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the Texas Historical Commission, two state agencies that have been involved in the Ranger museum case.
The city of Waco in 2007 discovered skeletons along the path of a utility line trench it was building to serve the new annex to to the Ranger Museum. The city hired an archaeologist to study and exhume the bones, under the guidance of the Texas Historical Commission.
The Texas Ranger Museum grounds, known as Fort Fisher Park, lies atop a historic cemetery known as First Street Cemetery. A state judge in 1968 granted permission for the city to relocate graves to another part of the cemetery to accommodate the new museum. But new evidence has emerged that most of the bodies were not moved when the headstones were moved.
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By Fred
September 6, 2008 5:08 AM | Link to this
Waco City Hall really screwed-up this one. The situation crosses over into being CRIMINAL when Waco City employees were told: “just throw those bones into the river”. The City of Waco tried to “cover-up” the matter before an obnoxious, crazy Shaman showed up performing his “mo-jo” which brought the Media into Fort Fisher. The insensitivity and carelessness of the City of Waco is truly amazing. The State of Texas needs to “come down hard” on Waco and make an example of Waco City Hall to prevent this happening in other Texas cities. Larry Groth and Mayor DuPuy were so focused on being “cheap” and saving money that they crossed over into the Criminal, unethical and “unthinkable”. They intentionally ran sewer-lines through the graves of Wacoans.