The Detroit News October 18, 2007

Community unites to address grave vandalism

Delores Flynn / The Detroit News

HIGHLAND TOWNSHIP -- When Jim Barnett and his wife went to visit their son's grave at Highland Cemetery this month, they checked on other family members' graves.

What they found sickened them.

A marble monument marking Barnett's parents' graves was broken and knocked over. The stone on his younger brother's grave was also tipped over. Looking around, Barnett saw the vandalism was widespread.

"We put our loved ones here to rest in peace," the White Lake Township resident said. "To have someone come along and inflict this kind of damage is sickening. Families don't need this kind of grief. I hope they are able to catch the culprits."

More than 40 tombstones and statutes were tipped over and broken on two occasions this month at Highland Cemetery where some graves date back to the 1870s, Township Clerk Mary McDonnell said.

This week the Oakland County Sheriff's Office, Lynch & Sons funeral home in Milford and other local businesses began offering rewards for any information that leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the vandalism.

"I feel so sorry for the families," McDonnell said. "A cemetery is a sacred place and this is a violation of that. The whole incident makes me angry. Whoever did this has no respect for the dead or people's property."

The township is working to get permission to help right headstones that are owned by individual family members. Staff members have already started to upright some of the smaller grave markers, but the large stones can weigh more than 800 pounds and lifting them requires equipment.

Local funeral homes have agreed to help with restoration efforts that are slated to begin in a couple of weeks. While there are no official estimates of the damage, the labor alone is worth more than $6,000, which is the cost of some of the tombstones, according to Mike Willenberg, owner of Huron Cemetery Maintenance, which maintains the 8,500 graves at the cemetery on Milford Road just north of M-59.

Officials said the cemetery was vandalized about 10 years ago. Police were able to catch the vandals, who paid restitution.

You can reach Delores Flynn at (248) 647-7225 or dflynn@detnews.com.