BREMERTON — A man found digging up a grave early Wednesday said he was trying to recover a gold cross that had been buried with his murdered brother.
Bremerton police were called at about 5:45 a.m. to the Miller Woodlawn cemetery off Kitsap Way after an employee spotted the man digging up the grave of Hector “Ricky” Apodaca, 30, according to police reports.
When officers arrived they found the man, 27, sitting in the hole he dug, along with two shovels and a spade. He had removed Apodaca's headstone and flung dirt over the surrounding 20 or so headstones. An officer described the hole as two feet wide, two feet deep and eight feet long.
An officer observed that the man appeared to be under the influence of drugs; the man said he had used meth about four hours before.
In February 2017 Apodaca was shot multiple times in the head and left on a Seabeck road where his body was later discovered by a passerby. Andrew Phillip Gilbert, 24, pleaded guilty to a count of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Gilbert and Apodaca had been using drugs together and Gilbert said he felt threatened by Apodaca so he shot him.
Officers told Apodaca’s brother he couldn’t dig up the grave, but they weren’t sure yet what law he had broken, according to reports. In the meantime, they told the man he had to leave the cemetery and could not return. He left on his bicycle and went to a nearby motel, where employees said he stole food from a breakfast buffet.
He returned to the cemetery at about 8 a.m. and was arrested. Bremerton city prosecutors charged the man with third-degree malicious mischief and second-degree criminal trespass.
