He had built a special flower box for her grave
A man is set to stand trial in the US after being arrested for placing flowers on the grave of his dead fiancée.
Alabama resident Winston “Winchester” Hagans, lost his fiancée, Hannah Ford, in a car crash in January 2021. After clearing the idea with city officials, Hagans built a custom flower box, complete with pictures of the pair together.
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But each time he returned, the flowers were gone.
A year after he lost his fiancée, Hagans was pulled over for driving with an expired license plate. However while dealing with the situation, he was informed that his father-in-law had signed a warrant for this arrest. His crime? Leaving flowers at his late wife’s grave, which the father deemed criminal littering.
‘The cop said, ‘I’ve never seen this before, but the warrant is for littering,’ Hagans told the Washington Post.
The preacher admitted that Ford’s father hadn’t approved of the relationship and went as far as to ban him from the funeral.
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He explained: “In the graveyard where my darling is, there are dozens of other planters and plants. This is crazy.
“I just want to be able to put that flower box on my fiancee’s grave.”
He continued: ‘The last things I heard her say were, I love you, and I hate leaving you,’ he told WRLB-TV, recalling that he had kissed Ford goodbye as she prepared to drive home after the couple had been to visit a potential wedding venue.
In a public statement, Auburn Police Department clarified that in the state of Alabama, “certain burial plots are owned and controlled by the family of the deceased and therefore are private property.”
They explained: “Any citizen has a right to pursue a criminal charge upon showing sufficient probable cause exists to believe a crime has been committed. The individual charged in this case turned himself in to the Auburn Police Department on January 24th, 2022, after a warrant was signed by another citizen.”
A trial hearing is set for March, where Hagans hopes his father-in-law will drop the charges.
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In a lengthy Instagram post, he wrote: “I hope that those that have read what happened would take time to think about the people they love that are no longer with them.”
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