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It's honouring a late US army sergeant, who loved Sponge Bob Squarepants, but according
to the mother of the woman buried here, the cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio, has now told
the family to remove of the monument. Deborah Walker's daughter Kimberly Walker loved the
cartoon character so much that when she died, allegedly at the hands of her ex-boyfriend,
her family decided to honour the former solider by erecting large monuments of the animated
character.
"We went through the channels to get these plots and also to get these monuments and
then you just turn around and walk away like we're nothing."
Deborah Walker says that the behaviour of Spring Grove has been disrespectful to her
family and to her deceased daughter.
"They had no compassion for what we were going through."
Deborah purchased six plots at Spring Grove in March and had two unique monuments of SpongeBob
wearing military uniforms made. The monuments cost more than $13,000 each and the Walkers
say the cemetery actually approved the statues. The design was done by artist Tara Chambers
who said she met with cemetery officials to approve the project.
"In the meetings that we attended it seemed like we had the acceptance of the staff and
personnel there so it seemed like it was going to be a great project."
The Spring Grove Cemetery admitted to local media that an employee had initially approved
the design but said it was not given the go-ahead by senior management and cannot remain.