Local News - Police investigate desecration of gravestones in Egg Harbor City
By LEE PROCIDA, Staff Writer | Posted: Tuesday, April 13, 2010 | 5 comments
EGG HARBOR CITY - Satanic messages were spray-painted on about 40 gravestones and a building in the Egg Harbor Cemetery sometime between Sunday night and Monday morning, police said.
The graffiti, in black and red paint, was concentrated on some of the oldest headstones in the graveyard, which was....Continue Reading
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started about the same time as the city's incorporation in 1858.
Cemetery workers found the desecrated graves Monday morning. Police investigated the scene but did not have any immediate leads, and local residents surveyed the vandalism to see if the graves of any friends or relatives were targeted.
"I can't imagine someone, anyone, desecrating a graveyard like that," Mayor Joseph Kuehner said after seeing the graffiti. "We want to bring the people to justice who did this."
One large headstone dating to 1887 had red paint on each side. Another family plot with graves from 1936 through 1999 had black paint on it.
A building in the center of the cemetery also had writing on each of its walls, although public works employees were able to remove one phrase from the front Monday.
It appeared the writing was randomly applied, sprayed in an area of the property obscured by some of the larger graves and far from nearby roads and homes.
The cemetery sits at the intersection of Moss Mill Road and Hamburg Avenue on the border of Egg Harbor City and Mullica Township. Egg Harbor City runs the cemetery, and police in both municipalities are investigating.
Mullica Detective Sgt. John Thompson said there were no immediate estimates of damage, but said it could cost several thousand dollars to remove the graffiti.
Kuehner said Monday that the immediate relatives of people in the graves had not yet been notified, saying there was no procedure for an incident such as this because it had not happened recently, if ever, at the cemetery. There is also the problem of finding immediate relatives for some of the people whose graves date to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Last year, several headstones were knocked over or broken, but at the time officials did not pursue an investigation because they weren't sure whether it was wind or vandals.
"Now we know it wasn't a storm," said Jane Peterson, 75, who was driving around the cemetery Monday afternoon with her husband Jim, 80.
The Galloway Township residents came to see if any of the burial plots of people they knew were affected. They weren't, but they recognized many of the family names on graves that were.
"Of course, it's a terrible thing to do," Jane Peterson said.
Most of the people buried there are from Egg Harbor and adjacent towns, said Brian Maxwell of the nearby Wimberg Funeral Home on Philadelphia Avenue, and there are still large sections of unfilled land there.
"It's a dreadful situation," he said.
Police ask that anyone with information about the vandalism call the Mullica Township Police Department at 609-561-7600 or report their tip to the Atlantic County Crime Stoppers hotline at 609-652-1234.
Contact Lee Procida: 609-457-8707 LProcida@pressofac.com
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