Grave Robbery Spreads Across America
Opioid abuse and the rising value of bronze are among the factors driving thieves to loot cemeteries.
A cemetery in Compton, Calif., is being stripped day by day, month by month. Thieves have damaged or stolen nearly 1,600 headstones and plaques since 2023. “We got hit in January. We got hit in December. We got hit in November,” says Celestina Bishop, 51, operator of Woodlawn Celestial Gardens. “We won’t be replacing them. We can’t afford that. We can barely take care of the cemetery,” Ms. Bishop says.
It’s happening across the country. More than $170,000 worth of bronze vases and markers were stolen from New Crown Cemetery in Indianapolis in August. In Brooklyn, N.Y., 1,300 grave markers have been taken from Most Holy Trinity Cemetery, according to memorialist Michael Hirsch. Rolling Green Cemetery in Camp Hill, Pa., lost $26,730 of bronze vases in 2024. Police arrested a suspect who they said was stealing 20 to 30 a day.
West Virginia, Massachusetts, South Dakota, Louisiana, Iowa, Illinois—these isolated local stories are combining to mark a nationwide desecration of the dead. Demand for scrap metal, used in industry, construction and home decor, has risen in recent years. Bronze can be sold as scrap for more than $3 a pound, and the market, $8.7 billion in 2024, is projected to reach $12.4 billion by 2034.
That makes graveyards easy pickings, especially military graves, which often have bronze plaques. “People sell those markers, even those little vases you put on them, and melt them down for money,” says Rebecca Meyer, 48, a gravestone conservationist and president of Epoch Preservation. “It is very much tied to the uptick of the opioid epidemic.” In August a man less than a year out of jail was arrested in Harnett County, N.C., for stealing nearly 100 bronze vases from graves. “Cemeteries are the last places people care about,” Ms. Meyer says. “Those people aren’t thinking about the dead.”
Cemeteries are taking defensive measures. In Cincinnati, the Sons of the American Revolution are now recommending flat granite markers flush with the ground. “Our hope is that these markers will stay there,” the organization wrote online. “They are heavy and have little to no scrap value.”
And after nearly 500 reported cases of scrap-metal theft in 2024, the Denver City Council passed new rules for scrap sales. Cash transactions are banned, and businesses must obtain signed affidavits from sellers attesting where the metal was obtained and keep copies of photo IDs and license-plate numbers. Massachusetts state lawmakers have introduced a bill that would make it a crime to possess or sell any object “placed or designed for a memorial of the dead” with “reasonable cause to know that it has been unlawfully removed from a cemetery or burial ground.”
There are also technological solutions. A Texas family used an Apple AirTag to help police find $62,000 worth of stolen vases. A ragtag online group, the “Grave Marker Recovery Team,” hunts down gravestones that have been stolen, typically to sell at antique shows as accents for upscale decorating.
Missing in all this is any reverence for or even superstitious fear of the dead. Ms. Bishop owns dogs—including a Cane Corso named Ghost—that patrol her cemetery. But thieves are giving her dogs “sleeping pills or something,” and other measures such as guards are “expensive, especially for a cemetery that doesn’t generate income.” Starting to sound forlorn, she says, “At this point, I’m just ready just to say, ‘stop tearing up my gates. I’ll just open it up and let you just have at it,’ since I know the police don’t care. No one cares anymore.”
Across the country, the criminal-justice system should take desecration of the dead far more seriously as an aggravating factor in thefts, with stronger prosecutions and harsher penalties. Federal involvement would also help, at least for veterans’ graves. “It’s illegal to sell a military marker of any kind,” says Doug Compton, 62, a member of the Grave Marker Recovery Team who calls himself “The Cemetery Man.” “Those are government property. Those are supposed to be returned to the National Cemetery Administration,” which is an arm of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Ms. Bishop’s cemetery in California is home to some 900 soldiers’ graves, including veterans of the War of 1812, the Civil War and the Gulf War. “It surprises me that the federal government has not gotten involved,” she says.
Add in recent cemetery thefts in Nebraska, North Dakota, New Mexico, Washington: Across the nation, American graveyards are being pilfered. Local governments and federal agencies should join to develop a national response.
Ms. Bottum is an assistant editorial features editor at the Journal.
A cemetery in Compton, Calif., is being stripped day by day, month by month. Thieves have damaged or stolen nearly 1,600 headstones and plaques since 2023. “We got hit in January. We got hit in December. We got hit in November,” says Celestina Bishop, 51, operator of Woodlawn Celestial Gardens. “We won’t be replacing them. We can’t afford that. We can barely take care of the cemetery,” Ms. Bishop says.
It’s happening across the country. More than $170,000 worth of bronze vases and markers were stolen from New Crown Cemetery in Indianapolis in August. In Brooklyn, N.Y., 1,300 grave markers have been taken from Most Holy Trinity Cemetery, according to memorialist Michael Hirsch. Rolling Green Cemetery in Camp Hill, Pa., lost $26,730 of bronze vases in 2024. Police arrested a suspect who they said was stealing 20 to 30 a day.
West Virginia, Massachusetts, South Dakota, Louisiana, Iowa, Illinois—these isolated local stories are combining to mark a nationwide desecration of the dead. Demand for scrap metal, used in industry, construction and home decor, has risen in recent years. Bronze can be sold as scrap for more than $3 a pound, and the market, $8.7 billion in 2024, is projected to reach $12.4 billion by 2034.
That makes graveyards easy pickings, especially military graves, which often have bronze plaques. “People sell those markers, even those little vases you put on them, and melt them down for money,” says Rebecca Meyer, 48, a gravestone conservationist and president of Epoch Preservation. “It is very much tied to the uptick of the opioid epidemic.” In August a man less than a year out of jail was arrested in Harnett County, N.C., for stealing nearly 100 bronze vases from graves. “Cemeteries are the last places people care about,” Ms. Meyer says. “Those people aren’t thinking about the dead.”
Cemeteries are taking defensive measures. In Cincinnati, the Sons of the American Revolution are now recommending flat granite markers flush with the ground. “Our hope is that these markers will stay there,” the organization wrote online. “They are heavy and have little to no scrap value.”
And after nearly 500 reported cases of scrap-metal theft in 2024, the Denver City Council passed new rules for scrap sales. Cash transactions are banned, and businesses must obtain signed affidavits from sellers attesting where the metal was obtained and keep copies of photo IDs and license-plate numbers. Massachusetts state lawmakers have introduced a bill that would make it a crime to possess or sell any object “placed or designed for a memorial of the dead” with “reasonable cause to know that it has been unlawfully removed from a cemetery or burial ground.”
There are also technological solutions. A Texas family used an Apple AirTag to help police find $62,000 worth of stolen vases. A ragtag online group, the “Grave Marker Recovery Team,” hunts down gravestones that have been stolen, typically to sell at antique shows as accents for upscale decorating.
Missing in all this is any reverence for or even superstitious fear of the dead. Ms. Bishop owns dogs—including a Cane Corso named Ghost—that patrol her cemetery. But thieves are giving her dogs “sleeping pills or something,” and other measures such as guards are “expensive, especially for a cemetery that doesn’t generate income.” Starting to sound forlorn, she says, “At this point, I’m just ready just to say, ‘stop tearing up my gates. I’ll just open it up and let you just have at it,’ since I know the police don’t care. No one cares anymore.”
Across the country, the criminal-justice system should take desecration of the dead far more seriously as an aggravating factor in thefts, with stronger prosecutions and harsher penalties. Federal involvement would also help, at least for veterans’ graves. “It’s illegal to sell a military marker of any kind,” says Doug Compton, 62, a member of the Grave Marker Recovery Team who calls himself “The Cemetery Man.” “Those are government property. Those are supposed to be returned to the National Cemetery Administration,” which is an arm of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Ms. Bishop’s cemetery in California is home to some 900 soldiers’ graves, including veterans of the War of 1812, the Civil War and the Gulf War. “It surprises me that the federal government has not gotten involved,” she says.
Add in recent cemetery thefts in Nebraska, North Dakota, New Mexico, Washington: Across the nation, American graveyards are being pilfered. Local governments and federal agencies should join to develop a national response.
Ms. Bottum is an assistant editorial features editor at the Journal.
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