Twenty-five-year-old Lawrence Nelson of Lenoir, North Carolina, went missing in 1906. His body was found a couple of months later, and two men were arrested for his murder. Charles Hampton Kendall and John Vickers were convicted and sentenced to 30 and 26 years, respectively. Soon after the conviction, Nelson’s father, the pastor of a local church, erected a tombstone for his son that gave his name and birthdate, then underneath was carved, “Murdered and robbed by Hamp Kendall and John Vickers, Sept. 25, 1906.” Most families would have been discouraged from using such an epitaph, but it was his son and his church cemetery.
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But Kendall and Vickers were pardoned by the governor ten years later, mainly because there were doubts about the one witness against them. Then the real murderer confessed. But the tombstone remained, because to change it would be grave desecration, which was a crime. That set up a conundrum that went on for decades. Read what eventually happened to the falsely accused murderers, the tombstone, and the laws surrounding gravestones at Atlas Obscura. Yes, there’s a picture of the tombstone.
Source: neatorama