Corona, CA Murder Mystery: Wife's suspicious death forces move of vet's grave

RIVERSIDE – The family of a veteran awaiting burial at Riverside National Cemetery had to find a new grave site because police believe he killed his wife before he died in a car crash, authorities said.

The bodies of Marine Corps veteran James Alan Summers of Corona and his wife Veronica were found May 31 after their sport utility vehicle plunged down a 200-foot embankment.

Police detectives first thought both died in the crash, but after a coroner's report they came to believe Summers bludgeoned his wife to death before he drove off the road, Corona police Sgt. Jerry Pawluczenko.

Vietnam veteran and retired CHP officer Steve Mackey alerted officials to the suspicions about the dead man.

“I just didn't think that it was right that he be buried with all the heroes out there at the cemetery,” Mackey said.

The burial that had been planned for June 12 was postponed and Summers' family had him buried elsewhere.

Federal law bars anyone convicted of capital murder – or those who flee or die before trial – from burial at a national cemetery.

The law was put in place in 1997 after Timothy McVeigh, a Persian Gulf War veteran, was sentenced to die for the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building that killed 168 people.