8:00 PM Sun, May 25, 2008 | Permalink
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PACIFIC, Mo. -- Lavina Close, wife of H.W. Close, died nearly 134 years ago in August 1874 at the age of 48. This Memorial Day weekend, her headstone is laying in the dirt, knocked off its pedestal by a vandal.
In all, 41 headstones at Pacific City Cemetery are damaged, cracked or ruined, according to Mike Bates, the president of this city's board of aldermen. He tells me another 31 headstones were toppled at St. Bridget's Catholic Cemetery across the street.
The head of a decapitated Virgin Mary statue sits in the dirt. A cross is face down in the grass.
"It's so pitiful to see what they've done to this," Kay Anding tells me after visiting a family member's grave site. "It makes you wonder what kind of a mind would come in here and do that and desecrate the things that we cherish so dearly. I just cannot understand."
Bates says the Boy Scouts visited here on Friday, placing flags at the graves of American military veterans. The vandals struck that night or early the next morning, damaging and destroying headstones, including some of the veterans'.
It takes a special type of criminal to vandalize graves.
"It's a terrible tragedy anytime but especially on Memorial Day weekend," Bates says.
The city is expected to discuss offering a reward of about $5000 for information leading to the capture of the vandals. The assumption is that more than one person is to blame, but the Pacific Police Dept. is not commenting about whether any evidence is being collected or processed.
"Many, many people have family members that are buried here. This is a treasure within our town, and we want to see it maintained as such," Bates tells me.
This is not the first time criminals have struck in this section of Pacific on the north side of Interstate 44.
Kay Anding says her sister brings flowers to a grave site in the Catholic cemetery and has faced repeated problems.
"She puts these wrought iron holders for her flowers, and everytime she puts one, they steal that," Anding says. "It's very disheartening."
These special criminals deserve special punishment. I'm open to your suggestions.
When these criminals are caught and convicted I strongly urge the prosecution to turn them over to the families of those who have been insulted and financially damaged by these animals. Let those 71 families decide what their punishment shoudl be, not the courts who will simply slap their paws.