Relatives assess damage at historic cemetery in Barrett, freedmen's town northeast of Houston Pickup plowed through burial ground over the weekend, toppling some tombstones

Rod Barnaba inspects the damage to a gravestone after someone drove through part of the historical Barrett Station Evergreen Cemetery over the weekend. The graves of Barnaba's family members were undisturbed. Rod Barnaba inspects the damage to a gravestone after someone drove through part of the historical Barrett Station Evergreen Cemetery over the weekend. The graves of Barnaba's family members were undisturbed. Photo: Godofredo A. Vasquez, Staff Photo: Godofredo A. Vasquez, Staff Image 1 of / 36 Caption Close Relatives assess damage at historic cemetery in Barrett, freedmen's town northeast of Houston 1 / 36 Back to Gallery

When Rod Barnaba stepped into Barrett's historic cemetery on Monday, the 46-year-old handyman thought back fondly to his childhood in the tight-knit community founded in 1889 by former slave Harrison Barrett.

Barnaba remembered how he would take a shortcut through the northeast Harris County graveyard to go between his relatives' homes a few minutes away.

On Monday, though, the walk was upsetting instead of nostalgic. Over the weekend, a pickup had plowed through the well-kept Barrett Station Evergreen Cemetery. It toppled tombstones and crashed through a residential fence in the once-rural area where development now encroaches as Houston's swelling suburbs expand outward.

The graves of Barnaba's family members - including his father and all four grandparents - were undisturbed. Others were not so lucky.

Wilbert Lee Eagleton, 77, saw the tire tracks that led to displaced tombstones bearing his family name. One long concrete slab was busted open, revealing a metal coffin. Eagleton, one of 13 children, was outwardly unfazed as he inspected the damage. It was just the latest challenge in a long life that included his 1964 election as the first black member of Crosby's school board.

As Eagleton and other residents arrived at the vandalized cemetery, they tried to piece together what had happened in the small town 20 miles northeast of downtown Houston. They wanted to know who damaged the headstones and who would pay for repairs at the 89-year-old cemetery maintained by volunteers.

"We are having a hard time with this," said Melody Fontenot, who leads the cemetery's nonprofit organization and just last year laid her husband to rest there, among about 2,500 other graves. "As people are finding out, they're so upset."

'It was different'

Some residents speculated the culprit was a drunken driver leaving a party, which would explain the empty Corona six-pack carton lying on the cemetery grass; one local looked at the tire tracks and figured it was two pickups, one pursuing the other as they busted through an adjoining fence; others suspected it was a neighbor nursing a grudge.

Police, however, initially reported that it was none of the above.

The damage occurred late Saturday or early Sunday, according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office and a neighbor who heard the incident.

Patricia Reed said it was around midnight when she heard an engine rumbling near her house, whose back adjoins the cemetery.

"I thought, oh my God, they're racing again," said Reed, 74. "But it was different. Then I heard a banging sound."

She couldn't look outside because she has no windows on the rear of her house, and she was afraid to go outside and risk a confrontation. So it wasn't until the next morning that she noticed the flattened road signs along Barrett Road, which curves through the graveyard. She called police.

The sheriff's deputies who responded found a man who said he had lost control of his 2005 GMC pickup in Barrett, an unincorporated area near Crosby that grew from 2,900 residents in 2000 to 4,720 in 2015, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

"At first he said that he was driving along and another vehicle was coming the other way, and he tried to avoid them and lost control," said Senior Deputy Thomas Gilliland. "But it was later determined … that he was the one (who was) speeding and lost control."

Deputies left the man, who was unidentified, with two traffic citations, one for failing to stay in a single lane and another for driving without a license, the sheriff's office said.

"It didn't look like anything was intentional, not that we know of," Gilliland said, adding that the sheriff's Traffic Enforcement Division has not finished its investigation. If police find the driver intentionally damaged graves, that could open the door to charges of desecration, a misdemeanor.

Donations needed

However, residents were not satisfied by the explanation. Some thought the man who was ticketed was not the actual driver. Several said witnesses saw a private tow truck remove a vehicle before police arrived at the cemetery.

On Monday, a few dozen people stopped by to survey and document the damage. Barnaba and Eagleton pulled out a tape measure to start planning repairs, though Fontenot didn't know where the cemetery would find the money.

"We don't have the funds to just use to clean up," she said. "We're going to have to get some donations."

Two workers from the county's roads and bridges department arrived shortly after noon with instructions to repair or replace the flattened road signs. They had not been told anything about a cemetery.