Someone is removing memorial crosses from an Okanagan Highway.

Over the last four months, several makeshift memorials located on Highway 33 near Beaverdell have been removed. Some more than once.

Jody Stibbs says her friend Laith Wenzel was killed in a crash on Highway 33 about five years ago when he was 27.

“About a month ago we were told that the cross was missing, only the cross, all the flowers and things are still there, I know this because I drove through there on September 22. My friend’s sister drove through a couple weeks ago and someone was driving along Highway 33 with crosses in their pickup truck. She noticed that all the crosses have been removed from that stretch of highway between the Big White turn off and Beaverdell,” says Stibbs.

Doreen Gardner, School Supervisor in Beaverdell, is one of two women who have been quietly up-keeping the memorials for the last seven years.

“Myself and a friend started putting up these memorials to honour those who have died in car accidents in this area. We maintain ten memorials. Over the last four months, a total of 15 crosses have been removed, all on the same memorials. I replace them, they take them, I replace them, they take them,” says Gardner.

She says someone keeps removing the same three memorials.

“We have a cross made in memory of a family of three, one is for two men who died at the same time and one is a 17-year-old who died five years ago.”

Gardner has no idea why anyone would do such a heartless thing.

“When they first started disappearing, I began securing them to trees with large screws. Now they are just being ripped out of the trees. Why would someone do that?”

Gardner says she has never advertised her up-keep of the crosses.

“I just feel it’s something that has to be done and I hope the families can take a little comfort in the fact that someone cares. I repaint the crosses every year and make sure they are far enough off the road that they aren‘t a distraction.”

Jeff Knight, with the Public Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Transportation, says highway memorials aren't regulated.

"We don’t regulate roadside memorial crosses and will only remove a memorial if it becomes a traffic hazard. For example, if a memorial is set up too close to the road or is blocking a sign," says Knight.

He says the policy states if the transportation district manager decides a memorial must be removed for safety reasons, an effort will be made to contact the person who put the memorial together.