Man killed by Cemetery Headstone...

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Man killed by Cemetery Headstone...

Beware the Mother-in-law Stone...

‘Unimaginable’: Man killed when headstone falls at mother-in-law’s gravesite

A 74-year-old Pennsylvania man died this week after a headstone fell on him while he was at a relative’s grave.

Stephen Woytack was decorating his mother-in-law’s grave for Easter on Monday when the stone toppled, reported ABC affiliate WNEP. Woytack’s wife, Lucy, was with him when it fell.

“They tie a cross to it every year, the both of them. And after they’re done tying the cross, they stand there, say prayers and they leave,” Ed Kubilus, the cemetery caretaker, told the station. “Usually, I come down and talk to them right away; [but] I went around the other end to start picking up the Christmas ornaments, and she came running up, ‘Help me, the stone fell on Stephen.’”

Throop PD confirms a 74yo man was killed when a headstone fell on him at St Joseph Cemetery @WNEP pic.twitter.com/1y2cWKc0La

The incident happened in Throop, which is not far from Scranton. Kubilus told the station that stones can shift when the ground starts to soften in the spring.

“It happened so quickly,” Lucy Woytack told the Scranton Times-Tribune.

She described her husband as an active member of their parish, telling the newspaper that he “would never hesitate to help someone else.”

“It is unimaginable to think that a visit of a faithful couple to the grave of loved ones in anticipation of the celebration of Easter could have ended in such a tragic manner,” Bishop Joseph Bambera, of the Diocese of Scranton, said in a statement to WNEP. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the deceased and his family.”

Kubilus told WNEP that Woytack is expected to be buried in a plot at the same cemetery, located near where the stone fell.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/31/unimaginable-man-killed-when-headstone-falls-at-mother-in-laws-gravesite/