GARLAND COUNTY, Ark. – The Garland County Sheriff’s Office is investigating after people found their families’ gravesites vandalized over the weekend. It happened at Cutting Morning Star Cemetery and many people found items broken or stolen from their loved ones’ gravesites.
Monday Nolen Wilson got the call Cutter Morning Star Cemetery, where his grandmother was laid to rest, had been ransacked.
“We have to spend our day out here trying to clean a grave that’s supposed to be memorized and decorated not devastation and chaos,” Wilson said.
Flowers were knocked over, a fairy was broken into several pieces and a necklace that laid on the headstone is now missing.
“My aunt had it homemade. My grandmother was a recovering addict and it was made by recovering addicts trying to get their life together,” Wilson said.
He was among dozens of family members cleaning up the mess believed to be left by vandals over the weekend. Becca Jones came to check on her two-year-old son’s grave early Monday morning.
“I just dropped to my knees and started crying,” Jones said.
She saw most of the items placed by his headstone in pieces.
“Things that we bring here and we put here that meant so much to us had been broken or thrown against his headstone,” Jones said.
While she can bring more flowers and crosses, some of the things can’t be replaced.
“His grandmother had painted him some beautiful blue angels and those were also thrown and broken,” Jones said.
As she set what’s left back around his grave she did find a bright spot through it all.
“The biggest thing is his headstone was not broken,” Jones said.
As she looks at the empty space, she still wonders how or why someone would do something like this.
If you know anything about the vandalism you are urged to contact the Garland County Sheriff’s Office.