On Feb. 21 Sumpter Township Police apprehended two men who had fled after being caught in Metropolitan Memorial Gardens with shovels and a dump truck, digging around grave stones.
Det. John Toth said investigations showed the two, plus one other person, had sold 1,245 pounds of bronze markers meant for veterans’ graves to Weiser Recycling in Wayne, for a profit of $1,992.
Det. Toth said the metal presently is worth about $1.60 a pound.
The sexton at Metropolitan Memorial Gardens cemetery on Willow Road told police that he discovered five veterans’ headstones with bolted-on metal plaques missing on Feb. 9.
On Feb. 21, he drove over to Willow Party Store to get some lunch and when he returned he saw the two men in the cemetery with shovels and asked them what they were doing.
He later told police that the men, who were driving a company truck from Westlawn Cemetery in Wayne, informed him they were working for the cemetery.
When he challenged them, telling them he was in charge of this cemetery and he knew they weren’t working for this cemetery, the conversation got heated.
The sexton told them he had already called the police, which he hadn’t, but they fled and then he did call police, while following the fleeing truck.
Sumpter Police Chief James Pierce and Officer Brian Stefani stopped the truck and questioned the men, who told police they were representing their company and trying to find a marker.
The two, identified as Wendel Ratliss of Wayne and Michael Johnson of Van Buren Township, both had outstanding warrants for their arrests and both had suspended driver’s licenses.
Sumpter took the men into custody on their warrants and then checked out their stories.
The manager of Westlawn Cemetery confirmed they worked for her, but had no idea why the truck was in Sumpter.
She said that not long ago she had sent the employees to the salvage yard with a small number of broken markers to be scrapped. She had supplied the workers with a statement on a cemetery letterhead verifying the scrapping.
Even so, the scrap yard owner called her to make sure this was on the up and up and she confirmed it was.
It was after that that the employees returned several more times with more veterans’ markers, each time with a statement on a letterhead, but sometimes the letters were hand-written.
The owners of the scrap yard told police they assumed it was legitimate because they had checked the first time.
Det. Toth said Weiser Recycling cooperated with police and supplied photocopies of the transaction receipts. There was a third employee who reportedly admitted to Wayne Police of taking in 14 to 20 more metal markers to the scrapyard.
Westlawn Cemetery found that 18 markers had been stolen from their storage building. They were waiting for spring to be installed on the graves. When checking, they found 18 empty boxes from the Veterans Administration, who supply the markers for veterans.
Det. Toth said the one foot by two foot markers weigh 18 pounds each, according to the VA website. By doing the math, there is reason to believe that almost 70 markers were taken from veterans graves, including those locations at yet unknown.
The two men apprehended in Sumpter were cited with misdemeanors and will report to 34th District Court in Romulus.
Det. Toth said it was interesting that four of the five police officers involved in apprehending the two were veterans. Besides veterans Toth, Stefani (Iraq), and Sgt. John Ashby, Officer Jerry Cox helped with the investigation, taking photos of the footprints and tire tracks in the snow at the cemetery.
The sudden snowfall that day lasted only a few hours before melting.
The photos showed the two men had moved a headstone three inches before the sexton returned from his lunch break.
Det. Toth said Sumpter Township is putting together an ordinance for the “protection of markers, monuments, or headstones.”
Belleville Clerk/Treasurer Lisa Long, who is in charge of Belleville’s Hillside Cemetery, said there have been no reports of missing headstones or markers at Hillside. She said the bronze markers that aren’t bolted onto the headstones are sunk in cement on the graves at Hillside.