Most of the time, when people visit a cemetery they comport themselves with dignity and respect. Even if they are not there to pay their respects at a loved one’s resting place, many people come to cemeteries to admire the art, jog, or enjoy the scenery. Unfortunately, cemeteries can also be targets for vandalism and a hangout for unsavory characters. Sometimes the dead have to be protected from the living.
Buried Treasure
For some villainous visitors, the headstones mark their targets like an X marks a buried treasure. Strange impulses have brought people to dig up the deceased. Just this past week in Illinois, 33-year-old Jeremy Rivers was approached by cemetery workers as he was busily digging at the gravesite of a woman who died nearly a century ago. Mr. Rivers told police he was moving the body of Victoria E. Vittetow, who lived from 1866 to 1920, at the request of her family. He left the scene before officers could determine the exact connections between Rivers and the Vittetow survivors, and he was later arrested at his home. The late Mrs. Vittetow’s body was still in the grave but had been ‘disturbed’ by Rivers according to news reports.
Others go digging with a concrete goal in mind they are not afraid to share. In New Hampshire in 2014, Melanie Nash enlisted two friends to help her dig up and search her father’s casket for his ‘real will’ which she believed was buried with him when he died in 2008. The three smashed open the concrete vault and broke open the casket which contained the body of Mr. Nash along with vodka and cigarettes but no will.
“All this was done for the right reasons and I know my father would be OK with it.”
Melanie Nash in her police statement
Cannibal Cravings
In a story straight out of a bad horror movie, two Pakistani brothers were arrested for using the local cemetery as their personal supermarket. Mohammad Farman Ali and Mohammad Arif Ali, both in their 30s, had already served two years in a Punjab province prison for digging up and consuming over 150 bodies from a local cemetery. Since Pakistan, like the United States, has no law against cannibalism, they could only be charged with desecrating a grave. Their release sparked protests and outrage as they tried to slip back into normal life in May 2013. However, barely a year later in April 2014, foul odors issuing from their house caused neighbors to call the police. The subsequent raid uncovered the skull of a toddler who had been buried in the nearby cemetery whose body the brothers had cooked into a curry. This time, the brothers were sentenced to twelve years in prison for grave desecration, property destruction, and disseminating fear.
Home Decor
While the Ali brothers treated their cemetery as a supermarket, Penny Snodgrass used hers as a home decor center. Visitors at Brounland Cemetery in Alum Creek, West Virginia were distressed to discover that headstones were missing from family plots. They took to local media to plead for any information that might lead to the return of the gravestones, which is when neighbors suggested that police look at the residence of Ms. Snodgrass. She had posted a handwritten plywood sign at the bottom of her wooded driveway calling her property ’The Cemetary’. Sure enough, law enforcement located the missing markers being used to line her driveway and fire pit. She freely admitted to her crime, and was arrested and charged with grand larceny, removal of grave markers, and littering. The tombstones were returned to the families, who rather than being angry were hopeful that through this incident Ms. Snodgrass would be able to get much needed mental health services. She had been living in a plywood shed after burning her own house and garage to the ground, and in her police statement stated that she was married to Jesus Christ.
Jinkies!
Finally, some people just want to have some burial ground fun but take it too far. Mourners called Portsmouth police in the United Kingdom about a man they said was causing a disturbance in Kingston Cemetery. They found Anthony Stallard, 24-years-old and unemployed, to be running amok in the graveyard and yelling ‘woooooooh.’ At his hearing for disorderly conduct, the prosecuting lawyer suggested, “I’m assuming he was pretending to be a ghost.” Stallard’s defense conceded, “He has accepted that his behaviour, if it had been outside of a cemetery, would not have been inappropriate…But inside a cemetery, while people are grieving for their loved ones, it might be.” His Scooby-Doo hijinks added 3 months to an existing 1 year suspended sentence for assault and a £75 fine.
Behave Yourselves!
While these visitors have gotten it wrong, good cemetery etiquette is easy to follow. Don’t litter, be respectful of visiting mourners, and be sure to leave everything exactly where you found it.
References
Blechl, Robert. “Grave-Ransacking Daughter Sent Back To Prison.” Caledonian Record. 10 October 2017.
Playing Marbles for Keeps 
Vandalism is a grave offense.
LikeLike