“Chief Tindell mentioned that there was a granite slab weighing more than 1,200 pounds over the grave.”
There’s your first clue, genius boy. Placing a “ledger” is expensive and only done AFTER a burial.
I just read one of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries where a man was buried alive in a small hole by a jilted lover who helped him remove the very large stone cover, then when he was in the hole to retrieve the treasure buried there, she jerked out the stick that held the stone up...............