BAKERSFIELD, CA. - What may seem like a Hallowen prank has some trying to understand the mystery of a grave marker found on the side of a road, engraved with a woman's name who is still alive.
The grave marker was found recently buried along Center Street, below the Mount Vernon overpass.
The name engraved on the lonely tombstone is that of Maria Elena Rhoades, with a birthdate of April 7, 1944.
An inquiry to Greenlawn Cemetery revealed there is a grave marker with the same name and birthdate at the cemetery for a different woman, whose last name "Rhoads" is spelled differently.
Greenlawn's CEO Jim Lamar speculates that the misspelled marker came from a monument company near Center Street that closed.
"At that time when that marker was made there may have been a typo and they remade the marker to be placed in our cemetery, and this marker was left in that monument company's yard, which was shut down and people were vandalizing, and probably they might have picked up that marker as a prank and someone took it out here.. all we can assume," said Lamar.
Lamar said that normally if a mistake is made the granite is pulvarized and recycled.
But, for some reason that didn't happen to this marker.
We tracked down Maria Rhoads, who is very much alive, and she told us she had no idea there was a grave marker alongside a busy road with her name on it.