{"id":10697,"date":"2021-05-06T12:58:02","date_gmt":"2021-05-06T16:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=10697"},"modified":"2021-05-06T12:58:14","modified_gmt":"2021-05-06T16:58:14","slug":"sheriff-grady-judd-launches-investigation-into-undelivered-headstone-for-retired-lakeland-police-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2021\/05\/06\/sheriff-grady-judd-launches-investigation-into-undelivered-headstone-for-retired-lakeland-police-officer\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheriff Grady Judd launches investigation into undelivered headstone for retired Lakeland police officer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Grady-Judd-Sheriff.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1168\" width=\"274\" height=\"195\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Grady-Judd-Sheriff.jpg 590w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Grady-Judd-Sheriff-300x214.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 274px) 100vw, 274px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The widow of Neil Kessler, a retired Lakeland police officer, fighting for an undelivered headstone, struck Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd personally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI do know Neil Kessler,\u201d Judd said. \u201cHe was a fantastic professional police officer for the city of Lakeland. I worked with him back in the day when I was a young deputy. He backed me up many times when there were no deputies available, so it was special to me when I saw your story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Judd launched a criminal investigation into where the money went and why the stone wasn\u2019t delivered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">June Kessler paid more than $1,500 to National Memorials in September. At first, delays were blamed on COVID-related material shortages, but for months there has been silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our Better Call Benken investigation found the business empty and owner William Minozzi has not returned any phone calls. That got the sheriff\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While the criminal investigation runs its course, Investigative Reporter Shannon Behnken continued to search for Mr. Minozzi, to hear his side of the story even attempting to pay him a visit at home, but it was a dead-end at a gate. She also left Minozzi a voicemail, but it was not returned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meanwhile, June Kessler says she is done worrying about National Memorials. She\u2019s thrilled she has the attention of Sheriff Judd and believes she\u2019ll soon have a respectful headstone for her husband.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sheriff Judd says a charity affiliated with the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office is willing to donate money for a headstone, if the business owner doesn\u2019t come forward with the money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But in the meantime, there was another offer. Davis Monument Company also offered a free headstone, as a thank you for Mr. Kessler\u2019s service to the community as a police officer and a veteran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The widow of Neil Kessler, a retired Lakeland police officer, fighting for an undelivered headstone, struck Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd personally. \u201cI do know Neil Kessler,\u201d Judd said. \u201cHe&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[194],"class_list":["post-10697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-undelivered-headstone"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}