Sister Berta Sailer said these tombstones represent about a decade of area children killed by abuse and neglect.
April is national child abuse awareness month, which is how 78 fake tombstones came to be in the Downtown Jackson County courthouse.
Among the speeches Monday was a short one by Nathen Ross, who stood at a podium next to tombstones of his two brothers.
They were Larry and Gary Bass, who both died at age 8 in what was one of the city’s most horrific cases of child abuse.
They died of starvation and burns that became infected. Their mother, Mary Bass, had burned them in scalding bath water and left them to suffer and die.
Authorities helped Ross after that and he got a foster family and a new life.
Now 24, he asked that people report child abuse.
“Because of the neglect of someone who could have done something I don’t have two of my brothers now,” he said.
Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders made the same plea: “If you see something, …don’t just think it’s someone else’s problem”
Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker called on people to report any suspicions and the system will handle an investigation.
“You could save a child’s life, it really can be that simple,” she said.
Sister Berta Sailer, who leads Operation Breakthrough, a large non-profit day care for hundreds of poor and often homeless children, said the tombstones represent about a decade of area children killed by abuse and neglect.
“We have to do better than this and we can do it if we all work together,” she said.
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