Stranger Leaves Flowers on a Dead Man's Grave for 36 Years: The August Fenner Mystery

Stranger Leaves Flowers on a Dead Man's Grave for 36 Years: The August Fenner Mystery

A coffin-sized quiet sits in Pinecroft Cemetery until the sharp scent of freshly cut dahlias breaks it - flowers left on a grave that had received nothing for thirty-six years. Who kept writing forty-one letters to a woman who never visited his grave, and why did someone begin leaving blooms the October after she died?

In this episode, we follow the trail from a service lane discovery to a cedar trunk of correspondence and a granddaughter who found a secret that changed her routines. What connects forty-one letters, a woman named Dorothy Crane, and a bundle of wet dahlias placed on a county-funded grave?

Person: August Fenner Date of death: November 1987 Person: Dorothy Crane Location: Pinecroft Cemetery, Hill Rows section Event: First bouquet found in second week of October

- August Fenner was born in 1931 and died at age 56 in November 1987. - Cemetery records show no flowers had been placed on Fenner’s grave in 36 years prior to the dahlias. - Fenner wrote 41 letters between 1979 and 1987, all addressed to Dorothy Crane. - Dorothy Crane kept all 41 letters tied with kitchen twine in a cedar trunk and never visited Fenner’s grave. - The first bundle of dark-headed dahlias was found with stems wet and blooms intact, left within the previous 12 hours.

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