Neighbours send horrifying group letter to grieving family saying they’re sick of seeing their memorial to dead son

A FAMILY has been scoffed at for continuing to mourn the loss of their son five years after a fatal car crash – with spiteful neighbours blasting their memorial as “down right despicable”.

The group of anonymous residents sent the family a letter cold-heartedly advising them to “get on with your life. We are tired of sharing your pain.”

Dylan Coen, 18, died five years ago in Georgia, US, after the teen “was going around a curve and must’ve lost control and went off into the woods,” his grieving sister, Ansley Rushing, told CBS47.

Ansley, who described her sibling as her best friend, told the station: “He had a big heart and he would just light up the room.”

His family placed a simple blue cross, with fresh flowers and a white balloon, at the site of the collision on a street in Brunswick.

But some neighbours have taken offence, and are fed-up with seeing the memorial.

In their anonymous letter – which was recently shared on Reddit – they whinged: “It is very unfortunate you lost your son and grandson.

“The residents who live off [the street] have lost loved ones just like you.

You burden us with your make-shift memorial in our backyard.

Anonymous letter to Dylan Coen's family

“It is downright despicable to remember your loved one this way.

“If you can’t afford a proper memorial in a proper place then go on the internet and set up a ‘go-fund-me’ page and ask for donations.

“It has been 5 years… get on with your life. We are tired of sharing your pain.”

Ansley told CBS the memorial is a “visual reminder of where he took his last breath”.

She slammed the letter as “heartless”, as it was “painful enough that we lost him”.

When reporters approached neighbours in the street about the letter, Freida Hartzog said she didn’t have a problem with the memorial, and called for the person responsible for it to “own up and speak their opinion to that family”.

Others in the community have taken a sympathetic stance following publicity about the negative writing.

One person has even placed a sign on the cross saying: “God Bless Dylan and his family. May this memorial forever stand as a symbol of a community’s love for a special kid.”

Since the letter was shared on Reddit two days ago it has prompted hundreds of comments, with one person slamming the memorial as “pretty ugly”.

Another said: “I understand still visiting a gravesite or whatever [after five years] but continually putting up memorials to a person who died more than a year ago seems pretty odd to me.

“If everyone put up memorials for their loved ones where they died every year we’d be tripping over this s*** constantly.”

But there was support, too, including from a person commenting: “I’ve seen so many of these memorials everywhere I drive and even on my street; never once did I think ‘I don’t want to see that’.

“I stop for a moment and think briefly how sad someone lost a life here and move on.

“I can’t imagine lacking so much empathy that you get to this point of nastiness.”