NEW BRIGHTON (KDKA) — A Beaver County cemetery near New Brighton recently fell victim to vandals, and now the grounds crew is working to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.

There is a peacefulness about Grove Cemetery in Daugherty Township.

But that quiet, peaceful aura may be just what thieves took advantage of when someone came into the cemetery and swiped bronze vases literally right out of the ground.

“I stopped by and I noticed that there were some holes in the ground and noticed there were some vases missing,” said Bill Bibby, the cemetery’s caretaker.

Each vase is valued at about $150 and there were 40 taken, but to take from the dead seems like a double insult to the families left to care for the graves.

“It’s devastating,” Bibby said. “What we try to do with the cemeteries is to service the families… and whens something like this happens, it’s heartbreaking.”

The thief or thieves will most likely try to sell the stolen vases as scrap, but they came from headstones that tell stories; and for families, they are anything but scrap metal.

“Things we’re going to try to resolve is… put chains across the entrance up there, try maybe and put cameras up to try and catch the peopel that are doing it,” Bibby added.

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