Visiting a gravesite is supposed to be an emotional moment of reflection. But for one man, doing so came with grave consequences.
Stephen Woytack, 74, was decorating his mother-in-law’s gravesite for Easter when the headstone fell, tragically killing him.
Stephen Woytack and his wife, Lucy, would visit the gravesite for Easter every year.
“They tie a cross to it every year, the both of them,” Ed Kubilus, St. Joseph’s Cemetery caretaker in Throop, Pennsylvania, said in an interview with ABC.
“And after they’re done tying the cross, they stand there and say prayers and they leave.”
Tragically, this visit was unlike any other.
Kubilus shared the horrifying moment he heard the incident happen.
“Usually I come down and talk to them right away but I went up the other end to start picking up the Christmas ornaments and she came running up, ‘Help me, the stone fell on Stephen!'” Kubilus said of Woytack’s wife.
While freak accidents do happen, Kubilus did say that it’s not unusual for the bases of the stones to tilt in the spring when the ground starts to thaw.
“I’ve come over and saw six stones fall from the winter,” Kubilus said. “Winter, and the ground gets soft and the stones fall over and you have somebody come and pick them up.”
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The tragic incident has both shocked and saddened the community.
Bishop Joseph Bambera of the Diocese of Scranton had this to say in a statement:
“It is unimaginable to think that a visit of a faithful couple to the grave of loved ones in anticipation of the celebration of Easter could have ended in such a tragic manner. Our thoughts and prayers are with the deceased and his family.”
Woytack was laid to rest in the same cemetery as his mother-in-law.
His gravesite is right in front of the same headstone that killed him.
Throop police decided not to open an investigation into the death, calling it a tragic accident. The coroner’s report also listed the death as accidental.
Lucy, Woytack’s wife of 46 years, told the ‘Scranton-Times Tribune’ that the incident “happened so quickly.”
She shared details about her late husband’s character, saying he was a kind and loving man involved with the church.
