Man arrested for littering after leaving flowers at fiancée's grave
AUBURN, Ala. (WKRC/WTVM/CNN Newsource) - An Alabama man whose fiancée died has been arrested for leaving a flower box by her grave.
Winchester Hagans lost his fiancée, Hannah Ford, due to a car crash in January of 2021.
She died one month after he popped the question.
Hagans says Hannah didn't like cut flowers from a florist, she preferred living flowers.
So that's why he says he made a planter box and left it on her grave.
"Even though she is gone, I promised her I would never bring her cut flowers again," said Hagans. "She was the love of my life, the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with."
Hagans built the flower box himself, filled it with her favorite flowers, and decorated it with pictures of the two of them to put by her grave.
He spoke with the city to ask if he was able to place it by her grave.
"The people of the city told me that they don't enforce that unless a family member asked for it to be removed," he said.
But in January of 2022, he was arrested for littering.
Hannah's father, Tom Ford, signed the warrant for his arrest.
Hagans says he was never contacted by him before he was arrested.
"The officer came over and said, 'Hey, Mr. Hagans, can you step out of the car, there is a warrant for your arrest.' I said, 'No, that's impossible, there's no way,'" he said.
Despite the arrest, Hagans says he has no regrets and that he would build a thousand flower boxes if he had to, for one simple reason:
"I want to love and honor the person that I loved the most."
