For last 12 months a pensioner has been finding human bones and even a skull strewn across her garden's flowerbeds with no idea where the grisly deposits came from.
Ann Mathers, 88, from Dudley in the West Midlands first found a skull last July outside the terraced home she had lived in for 60 years and called the police.
The local force then cordoned off her property as a possible crime scene.
However, it was discovered that the 'criminals' were in fact a cete of grave-robbing badgers who had been digging up bones from a nearby cemetery and dumping them in Ann's garden, reports the Daily Star.
The gran was said to be "scared to death" at first by the grim findings, which included several femur bones, but since the furry culprits were finally uncovered the animals' ongoing behaviour has become a nuisance.
Ann’s daughter Lorraine Lloyd, 60, said: “This problem has been going on for a year now and my mum is just sick of it.
“The badgers are tunnelling under the graves and when they come across one which has collapsed they drag the bones out and dump them in mum’s garden.
"They are basically fly-tipping human remains all over my mum’s lawn and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Ann's home backs onto Providence Baptist Church's cemetery and the badgers used a footpath between the two to drag the bones along.
Civil servant Lorraine said her elderly mum called up "in hysterics" when the skull was first found and that she could not believe her eyes when she saw the morbid evidence for herself.
She added: “There were human remains everywhere. We called police and they sealed it off as a crime scene.
"I don’t know if they thought it could be a possible murder victim but pretty soon they found lots of holes in the garden where the badgers had been digging through.”
“It must be very distressing for people if they found their relatives remains were being dug up.”
One particular night Ann came downstairs and counted seven badgers on her lawn.
Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council told the concerned family, who pleaded with them for help, that nothing could be done to relocate the badgers until this year's breeding season is over.
Cabinet member for highways councillor Shaz Saleem said: "As badgers are a protected species, we are in the process of obtaining the services of a qualified ecologist to help us further.”
While Woodsetton Ward's councillor Adam Aston said he hoped that urgent work can be done to improve the boundary of the churchyard to prevent any further burrowing in the area.
Cllr Aston, who works as a paramedic and said he is not easily shocked, added: "We completely understand that badgers have a protected status in law, particularly in the breeding season and the council finds itself in a difficult position but we hope this disrespectful situation can be resolved and the right of way re-opened for public use, it is quite distressing for our constituents.”
