Vandals take down 40 gravestones in Milton Cemetery
TO HELP
Anyone with information on the vandalism at the Milton Cemetery can call the Milton Police Department at (608) 757-2244 or the Janesville Area CrimeStoppers at (608) 756-3636. Anonymous tips also can be sent via text message to CRIMES (274637) and entering JACS plus your message.
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About two dozen monuments in the Milton Cemetery were overturned or damaged late Wednesday or early Thursday. Preliminary estimates place the damage at possible $60,000.
MILTON — Visitors to the Milton Cemetery this Memorial Day weekend will have an unwelcome surprise as dozens of headstones, some of which are more than 100 years old, lie toppled and shattered.
Milton police suspect young vandals struck sometime between Wednesday afternoon and early Thursday, leaving about 40 headstones knocked over in the city-owned cemetery at 123 N. Janesville St. on the north side.
Vandals focused on the center row of headstones in the cemetery, knocking over about 25 stones and shattering about 15 more—some of which are old, brittle and date to the late 1800s.
The damage was discovered about 7:30 a.m. Thursday when city crews arrived to mow the cemetery, Public Works Director Howard Robinson said.
Robinson said the city’s insurance company had not yet estimated damages but the vandalism could total at least $60,000 if many of the stones need to be replaced.
Robinson said it’s unlikely the city would be able to fixed the stones before Memorial Day. He said people going to the cemetery to pay respects this holiday weekend will have a shock.
“It’s a bad time for this to happen. Some people, this holiday is the only time they come out here. Now, they’re going to bring out flowers and see all of these stones knocked over. They’re obviously going to feel pretty upset,” Robinson said.
What’s worse, Robinson said, the city has no way to contact many of those whose family monuments were desecrated. Some could find out the hard way this weekend.
One of the stones smashed was a white spire that marked the remains of a woman and her husband; she died in 1875, he in 1900. The spire, which showed a carving of two interlocking hands, was on the ground smashed in three pieces.
Janesville resident Frank Pennycook, 84, a U.S. Marine who served in World War II, was setting flowers on family graves at Milton Cemetery Thursday afternoon. He surveyed the damage at the cemetery with disgust.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous. When you damage the dead, that’s just ridiculous,” Pennycook said. “I suppose it was just kids that did this, but still …”
Robinson said it’s likely the stones were pushed over by more than one person, but he said they also could have been toppled with a pry bar. Most of the stones weigh 500 to 800 pounds.
Robinson said it would take city workers 80 to 120 work hours to pick up toppled stones with a forklift and to piece together the broken ones.
Milton Police Lt. John Conger said police were investigating the vandalism, but no one was in custody Thursday. He said investigators suspect local youths are to blame.
The vandalism probably was an isolated incident, he said, but police plan to focus extra patrols on all of the city’s cemeteries today and this weekend.
