By Sharon Coolidge
The Cincinnati Enquirer

NORTHSIDE - The caretaker of Wesleyan Cemetery, who spent 18 months in prison for stealing thousands of dollars from the cemetery's trust, is out of prison and back in charge of the property.

The headstone for Elizabeth Bacon, who passed away in 1844, stands in tall grass at the Wesleyan Cemetery in Northside. (Ernest Coleman photo)

But not for much longer if Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro has his way.

Petro says Robert Merkle and other trustees who are in charge of operating and maintaining the 24-acre cemetery where more than 17,000 people are buried have not done their jobs.

Last week, grass was so high in some places it obscured graves. Weeds seeped out of cracks in the winding road. Downed tree branches had not been picked up.

In a lawsuit filed in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, Petro is asking the court to remove Merkle and the other trustees, Bonnie Merkle, Diana Sams and Donald Evans. It also seeks to prevent them from selling any burial plots.

"Families' loved ones are buried here, including veterans of the United States, and we want to make sure that their gravesites are respectfully maintained," Petro said. Between 1,000 and 2,000 veterans are buried in the cemetery.

Under Ohio law, the attorney general is the only entity that can go to court to remove board members from a trust, which is how Wesleyan is set up.

Hamilton County and the City of Cincinnati are also named in the lawsuit because they have an interest in the outcome of the case, but for different reasons, Petro said. Cincinnati, under state law, could deem the cemetery a public nuisance and then order trustees to clean it up. Hamilton County is named because state law says, in some cases, county commissioners must care for the burial sites of veterans.

Neither the city nor the county is accused of wrongdoing.

Merkle, the state, the county and the city will meet in court May 24 to discuss the lawsuit's allegations. Merkle's attorney, P.J. Conboy, said his client might be willing to entrust the cemetery to someone else. Despite his conviction on two counts of theft and failing to maintain an endowment fund, Merkle continues to deny stealing from the trust and may ask the Ohio Supreme Court to overturn the conviction.

"He wants to make sure the cemetery is taken care of, but maybe he'd like to get out of it based on everything that's happened," Conboy said.

A decade of decline

The cemetery has been a center of controversy since the early 1990s.

Human bones were found strewn about the cemetery in 1992. Authorities discovered no records of graves had been kept since 1843.

The Rev. Joseph Garr, who then oversaw the cemetery, was cleared of criminal allegations that he dug up gravesites to be sold and used again for burial.

In 1995, Peter Randolph, a lawyer, resigned as president of Wesleyan after a group of plot owners sued him, alleging he and Garr were digging up graves and throwing the bones into dirt piles at the rear of the grounds in order to resell prime burial plots.

The suit was eventually dismissed.

Before his resignation, Randolph contacted Merkle, an unordained Methodist minister, to take over care of the cemetery. Merkle created a new board of directors, which included his wife, stepdaughter, stepson and son-in-law. When Merkle became the president, the Wesleyan corporation had more than $97,000 in a fund set up to maintain the cemetery, court records said.

Immediately, Merkle began transferring money from that fund into his personal checking account, records said. He bought toy trains, satellite TV and school tuition for his grandchildren with the money, authorities said.

By 2000, people who had relatives buried at Wesleyan complained to authorities that the cemetery was not being kept up. In fact, the condition of the cemetery motivated some people to exhume their relatives and have them buried elsewhere.

During the investigation, authorities discovered the theft.

Merkle was convicted in May 2002 on charges of theft and failure to maintain an endowment care fund for looting the cemetery's maintenance and upkeep fund of $93,000 between 1995 and 1999.

A judge sentenced Merkle to spend 18 months in prison. He was released in November.

But because the criminal case dealt only with the theft, Merkle remained in charge of the cemetery. No one ever filed any civil court proceedings to remove Merkle as the cemetery's trustee.

New group forms

While Merkle was in prison, a group of people with relatives buried in the cemetery formed Friends of Wesleyan Cemetery, a non-profit group whose members have cared for the cemetery.

With just over $1,000 in donations, the group bought a commercial mower and rented another to keep the grass cut.

Debbie Redmon, a member of the group, is frustrated. In 1977, she buried her son in the cemetery and bought plots for the rest of her family as well. She's since moved her son to another cemetery and donated the extra plots to others, but remains involved with Friends of Wesleyan Cemetery.

She and others, she said, put a lot of work into cleaning up the cemetery, only to see it deteriorate all over again.

"What's happening is not right," Redmon said. "The deceased can't fight for themselves, we have to do it for them."

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E-mail scoolidge@enquirer.com