Grave digger charged after disposing infant’s casket

A man employed as a grave digger, Matthew Ray Fortner of Huntington, has been arrested in connection to an infant body that was discovered outside of its casket in a cemetery in Cabell County. A criminal complaint filed with the Cabell County Magistrate Court said Fortner was employed as a grave digger at Baylous Cemetery along the 1300 block of Hickory Ridge Road in Salt Rock. He was digging up a plot for the burial of a different person when he struck the casket belonging to an infant buried in 1982. Fortner is accused of dumping the casket and the deceased body of the child over a hillside near the gravesite. Bond for Fortner was set at $105,000.