Georgia police have brought felony charges against suspects accused of stealing from the graves of babies and veterans, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Tuesday.
The suspects, Brian Keith Hicks, 35, Samantha Diane Mathis, 29, and 19-year-old Marissa Dawn Savage, allegedly stole 29 bronze vases from the graves of babies and veterans at the Hill Haven Cemetery, a Walton County Sheriff's Office report said, according to the AJC.
"Thieves are thieves; they just don't care; they have no remorse," Walton County Sheriff Joe Chapman told 11Alive News. "They're just trying to support their habits."
The sheriff's office found out about the theft when the cemetery's owner called on Feb. 28 and said over two-dozen vases had vanished from sections where babies were buried. Vases from another section for veterans were gone, too, the AJC reported. Family members of the dead also told police about missing vases.
The trio was arrested in early March after they tried to sell the vases as scrap metal, police told the AJC. The suspects allegedly tried to sell the vases, valued at $500 each, to the JCD Recycling company in Monroe. The company alerted the sheriff's office, 11Alive News reported.
All have been charged with two counts of theft by taking and are being held without bail at the Walton County jail. Savage was charged with an additional count of theft by deception.
Other grave sites in Monroe and Winder were also reportedly disturbed, the Walton County Sheriff's Office told the New York Daily News.
One of the suspects, Hicks, had previously pleaded guilty to stealing several urns from a cemetery in Barrow County in the summer of 2013, 11Alive News reported.
"He has 34 prior arrests, theft charges and drug charges, all of 'em," Chapman told 11Alive News. "So he's not sitting on the front row at church every Sunday, I promise you that."
