Vets’ graves targeted by Saugus cemetery thieves

SAUGUS – Thieves hit an unlikely spot Tuesday, ripping off hundreds of flag holders from veterans’ graves in Riverside Cemetery.Town Manager Andrew Bisignani called the two thieves who were spotted around 6 a.m. the lowest of the low.”Who would steal from a gravesite?” he asked.Bisignani said two Town Hall employees out for a morning walk spotted a car parked in Riverside Cemetery. He said the women realized the two men in their 30s and wearing hooded sweatshirts were putting items, unidentifiable to the witnesses, in the trunk of the car. When the men saw they were being watched, they climbed into their white Toyota Camry and fled.Bisignani said he notified Cemetery Superintendent John Falasca, who surveyed the grounds and realized a number of aluminum flag holders were missing from the veterans’ graves.The holders are a long, thin tube with a medallion attached that the flags slide into before being inserted into the ground.Falasca was initially stumped that the thieves took the time to replace the flags, and said it is unlikely his employees would have noticed the missing sleeves had they not been looking closely.Falasca also said a couple of his workers found a random stack of the aluminum sleeves at the edge of the cemetery last week, but he didn’t think anything of it until he was told of Tuesday’s thefts.”Then we put two and two together and it made sense,” he said.Initially, Falasca estimated about 250 holders were stolen, but while walking the cemetery Tuesday afternoon, he became distraught when he found several more plots that had been raided. He said it would take some time to do a complete survey, but he estimated closer to 500 were missing.”I’m just sick about this,” he said holding his head in his hands. “This is going to cost a lot of money to fix.”While Falasca said the town is lucky in that thieves missed the more expensive, older sleeves that held bronze plaques, the inexpensive aluminum sleeves still cost about $20 apiece.Bisignani said the town would likely have to replace the markers, but he is unsure how to pay for what could be a $10,000 tab.Also reported missing were about a dozen brass and copper water faucet fixtures that were scattered throughout the cemetery.Police Lt. Leonard Campanello said the department will put additional patrols in the cemetery and it will reach out to local scrap dealers. He admitted is unlikely scrap dealers would report the appearance of 500 grave markers. He said it’s also possible the markers would be cut up and unrecognizable when they were turned in as scrap.Falasca said it surprised him the thieves took the aluminum at all – while the markers weigh two to three pounds apiece, he said he couldn’t imagine they would get much money for them.Selectman Stephen Castinetti said there were no words to adequately describe his anger over the incident.”As a veteran I’m offended,” he said. “I don’t know what I would do if I caught the people that did this.”The retired naval officer said each year he would corral his son’s Cub Scout troop to help mark the graves of veterans for Memorial Day. He blamed the theft on the drug culture.Police Lt. Michael Annese blamed it on the economy in general.”Unfortunately when things take a downturn, you’re going to start seeing more things like this,” he said. “You’ll see people taking things in places you never even thought of but they did.”