‘It made me sick,’ family member says of vandalized graves at public cemetery

Concerned family members drove through Evergreen Cemetery checking for damage Thursday morning.

After reports hit social media of vandalism at the public burial ground off Houston Avenue, relatives have been coming by to check loved ones’ graves.

Beverly Taylor drove all the way from Dublin to take a look at the graves of her mother and aunt.

“It’s desecration,” she said while looking at the toppled headstones and broken obelisks. “The people that did it, they need to find something else to do because this is not right.”

Taylor was relieved to find a ceramic angel still standing watch over her mother’s resting place.

Other mementos were smashed nearby toward the back of the cemetery, not far from Interstate 75.

T.J. Simpson drove up from Fort Valley to make sure his cousin’s final resting spot was intact.

The marker was in place, but a figurine of an angel on a swing was missing from the top of the grave.

“It’s sick,” Simpson said of the damage. “They’ll have to answer to it one day.”

The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office first heard of the damage in early July, Lt. Randy Gonzalez of the public affairs office said.

“It covered several sites out there that were damaged,” he said.

As you entered the narrow Evergreen Lane on Thursday, an obelisk was lying on the ground at the grave of the son of W.T. and Sallie S. Johnson.

Scattered spots of vandalism are throughout the cemetery.

One bench is broken, urns have been smashed and granite headstones have been pushed over in several locations.

Bibb County maintains the public areas of the cemetery, said county spokesman Chris Floore.

Family members will have to pay to make repairs to the tombstones and other items, he said.

“That’s considered private property because people essentially purchase that piece of land,” Floore said. “Those headstones were purchased with private money.”

Floore encouraged anyone who finds damage to report it to the sheriff’s office.

Wayne Carlson of Macon drove to the rear of the cemetery Thursday morning to check on his relatives.

“It made me sick that people would do stuff like that,” he said.

His sister doesn’t even visit their parents’ graves anymore because she doesn’t feel safe.

She has been approached by people asking for money and behaving rudely when she refused, he said.

When he arrived, three small, white, wooden crosses were still intact at the top of the granite slabs in the Carlson family plot.

“Ours are OK. Nobody messed with them,” he said. “I’m glad. I just hate it for other people, though.”

This story was originally published July 27, 2017 at 12:31 PM with the headline "‘It made me sick,’ family member says of vandalized graves at public cemetery."