NORTH LEBANON TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- Tammy Warner of North Lebanon Township says she was devastated to see all of the mementos, including a 75-pound cross, stolen from her son's memorial site last week.
D'Kota Wolf, 18, was killed in a crash on August 25, 2013. The car he was a passenger in slammed into a utility pole along West Kercher Avenue at Kenbrook Road and Wolf died at the scene.
Since then, his family placed a large cross at the site, and other mementos including his skateboard, on which they wrote messages to him.
"We have his ashes but that's where we go," she says. "The last of him."
Last Friday morning, Warner discovered everything had been taken from the memorial site overnight. She says she felt sick.
"His iron angel wings are missing, that were up on the pole," she says. "They literally had to unscrew them and take them out."
Warner filed a report with North Lebanon Township Police.
But this week, Warner says a family friend saw a man trying to file off Wolf's name, which was painted on the utility pole.
Warner confronted the man, Kenny Arnold, in a video that's garnering thousands of views on Facebook, and he appears to admit that he did it.
WARNING: The video below contains obscene language.
We asked Arnold whether he took the items. He answered, "None of your business."
"This is not a graveyard," he says, pointing out to a yard. "There's a man he died right here of a heart attack. You don't see a memorial do you know why? Because they're real Christian people that have respect for that man they aren't going to pollute his site where he died. I mean what kind of respect is that, that kid looks down and says, what the heck mom you think I'm a pig?"
He and other neighbors say they oppose the memorial being on the road.
"It's litter," he says. "It doesn't belong out here, if you're in mourning, that's one thing to mourn and put some natural organic stuff out there that rots away and then deteriorates. But you don't put something that's going to be there for the rest of our lives. I live up here, I have to see this every day of my life that's not right."
The Department of Transportation says putting up memorials in a state right-of-way is not permitted. However, PennDOT looks the other way unless a memorial presents a safety issue. In that case, they remove the items and temporarily hold them for the family to retrieve them.
In the case of West Kercher Road, the North Lebanon Township manager says the road is in their jurisdiction, and they do not remove memorial sites.
Warner says she wants her son's skateboard and the cross back - it was made by her son's friend.
"Give us the cross back, we won't put it there, we'll put it elsewhere," she says. "Just give us our son's things back."
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