Trio charged with setting up homeless camp at cemetery

ST. LOUIS – Two men and a woman will appear in court Wednesday afternoon for allegedly setting up a homeless encampment at a St. Louis cemetery.

According to probable cause statements from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, a concerned citizen called police on Feb. 24 to report vandalism at Gatewood Gardens Cemetery in the city’s Princeton Heights neighborhood.

Officers responded and found a physical encampment set up among the gravesites, as well as shattered headstones and copious amounts of rotting garbage nearby. Police then realized the camp had been built on a gravesite and was touching a headstone.

Support cords stretched out over the graves and were attached to nearby trees, police said.

Authorities said they found three people inside the makeshift camp: Charles Oker, 42, Luther Garner, 52, and Tiffany N. Smith, 44. The trio was arrested and the campsite taken down.

The St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office charged Oker, Gardner, and Smith each with one count of knowingly disturb/destroy/remove/vandalize/damage a marked or unmarked burial site.