Just out on WXIA News - watch your step in the cemeteries as I imagine this means the police will be watching them for you.
http://www.11alive.com/rss/rss_story.aspx?storyid=139027
FLOWERY BRANCH, GA - Considered by most people as sacred ground, cemeteries are often vandalized. But someone has been stealing from several North Georgia cemeteries to make money... potentially big money. Thieves have been taking bronze flower vases from graves to resell them as scrap, some from the graves of children. "That's probably about the worst, I feel," said Flowery Branch Police Chief Gerald Lanich. He tells me their investigation began December 2nd when 54 bronze vases vanished from the Memorial Park South Cemetery near the Atlanta Falcons training complex; vases that cost as much as $150 each. The trail soon led police to the Schnitzer recycling company a few miles north in Gainesville. Because the company keeps good records, it led police to 61-year-old Jack Lamar Benson.
Police say he used forged funeral home documents to sell 72 stolen vases to the recycling company for $900.
The vases have now been recovered and police say there could be other arrests. That's because Benson is cooperating and has told detectives he was acting as a fence for other thieves. "His information to us was that he did not take them himself from the cemeteries," said Chief Lanich, "but people would come to him or call him and he would purchase them." Chief Lanich says they've now traced similar thefts to cemeteries as far away as Cobb, Cherokee, and Bartow Counties. "We've contacted many agencies and many cemeteries and we have found in our area it's very widespread," Benson added. Ironically, none of the vases recovered so far is from the Flowery Branch cemetery where their investigation began. But police hope if they can catch other members of the theft ring they might recover those vases as well.
Meanwhile, Jack Benson is being held in jail on $30,000 bond facing charges of theft by receiving and forgery.
