Grave robbers hit N.M. cemetary

ð A CIVIL-WAR ERA CEMETERY TODAY AND DISCOVER THE LOOTING MAY HAVE BEEN GOING ...  More »

ð A CIVIL-WAR ERA CEMETERY TODAY AND DISCOVER THE LOOTING MAY HAVE BEEN GOING ON FOR DECADES. ---APRIL SNOW --- WE'RE TRACKING THE RAIN THAT'S TURNING INTO SNOW IN PARTS OF THE STATE RIGHT NOW. --- HEALTHY EATING --- WE TAKE A LOOK AT A STUDY DONE IN NEW MEXICO THAT SHOWS SOME POPULAR FOOD HERE COULD FIGHT CANCER.. WE'RE NOT FINISHED WITH WINTER WEATHER YET...AT LEAST SOME OF US. WITHIN THE LAST HALF HOUR.... RAIN FALLING IN SANTA FE HAS TURNED TO SNOW... IN ALBUQUERQUE .....IT HAS JUST BEEN RAIN.. BUT IT'S BEEN SO LONG, SOME PEOPLE WERE CAUGHT OFF GUARD. WHILE NOT A DOWNPOUR-- IT DID PUT A DAMPER ON THE AFTERNOON FOR SOME. LET'S GET TO CHIEF METEOROLOGIST LARRY RICE IN THE PINPOINT 4 STORMCENTER. TONIGHT WE HAVE MORE DETAILS ON THE GRAVE ROBBERS THAT LOOTED HISTORIC FORT CRAIG -- STEALING DEAD SOLDIERS WHO FOUGHT IN THE CIVIL WAR ON WHAT IS NOW NEW MEXICO SOIL. SHELTON DODSON VISITED FORT CRAIG TODAY.. HE'S HERE NOW WITH OUR TOP STORY... SHELTON: EVEN SOME PEOPLE WHO'VE LIVED IN NEW MEXICO THEIR ENTIRE LIVES DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT FORT CRAIG -- SOME DON'T EVEN KNOW IT EXISTS. BUT SOMEONE ELSE CERTAINLY DID AND DECIDED TO UNEARTH THE REMAINS OF SOLDIERS WHO FOUGHT ON THAT LAND 150-YEARS AGO: IT WAS AMERICAN HISTORY LONG BEFORE NEW MEXICAN HISTORY. ESTABLISHED IN 18-54 FORT CRAIG, SOUTH OF SOCORRO, PLAYED A KEY ROLE IN THE CIVIL WAR. THIS IS WHERE MANY OF THE FORT CRAIG'S SOLDIERS WERE BURIED... IT'S ALSO WHERE ARCHAEOLOGISTS RECENTLY FOUND A LOT OF THINGS BENEATH THE GROUND THAT DID NOT BELONG THERE. : 'Things like a plastic cigarette butt, cigarette wrappers, candy wrappers, things like that that was telling us somebody had been in those graves subsequent to the exhumation by the military that somebody did something illegal.' JEFFREY HANSON AND HIS TEAM EXHUMED THE ENTIRE CEMETERY AFTER LEARNING IT WAS BEING LOOTED. : 'Once you loot a site, once you take a shovel and start digging into a pre-historic earth or a room block or even a grave and a coffin, you are destroying it in a way that can never be reconstructed again.' HANSON BELIEVES THAT A MAN NAMED DEE BRECHEISEN -- WHO'S SINCE DIED -- MAY HAVE LED THE LOOTING AT FORT CRAIG. A FRIEND OF HIS BACK IN THE '70'S SAYS BRECHEISEN SHOWED HIM MUMMIFIED REMAINS OF A BLACK SOLDIER INSIDE HIS HOUSE. THREE YEARS AGO THOSE REMAINS WERE RETURNED ANONYMOUSLY. : 'History left these people behind and these people need to be honored. they need not to be forgotten and it's out obligation to do everything that we can to make sure that that happens.' DURING THE EXHUMATION HANSON'S TEAM RECOVERED 67- SKELETONS... 39 OF THEM BELIEVED TO BE SOLDIERS. THE CEMETERY HAS SINCE BEEN BACKFILLED AND THE REMAINS REMOVED TO BE ANALYZED, IDENTIFIED AND THEN REBURIED IN A NATIONAL CEMETERY. : 'We feel that we are doing the moral and right thing to make sure these individuals are getting their proper place of respect and rest. and that more than anything else is something we feel really good about.'ANY ARTIFACTS THAT WERE RECOVERED ALONG WITH A FULL SET OF REMAINS WILL BE REBURIED AT A NATIONAL CEMETERY. ARTIFACTS FOUND IN EMPTY GRAVES WILL BE KEPT AND USED FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES.  « Less