As many as 6,600 graves potentially misidentified were tallied on Thursday, as the cemetery’s former superintendent John Metzler blamed his staff and a lack of resources for the scandal that forced his dismissal. Metzler and his deputy, Thurman Higginbotham, were forced to retire after Army investigators initially found that 211 graves were unmarked or misidentified.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, chairwoman of an oversight panel on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Reform Committee, and a Missouri Democrat, said she believes that between 4,900 and 6,600 graves may be unmarked or mislabeled on cemetery maps.