A Gwinnett County metal recycler who thought there was something suspicious about a batch of brass he had been offered is credited with the arrests of three men who allegedly stole funeral vases from an area cemetery, Channel 2 Action News reports.
"There's very few things that you can point to and say that's stolen," Chris Foster, of TriStar Recycling in Norcross, told Channel 2.
But he immediately became suspicious when someone offered to sell him 120 vases.
"They cut them up, trying to disguise them, as if cut in half funeral brass looks any different than the whole pieces," Foster said.
The vases turned out to have been stolen from Hillandale Cemetery in Lithonia on Monday or Tuesday.
"It hits us in the gut,” cemetery owner Kelly Link told Channel 2.
“It's the worst time of year, first of all,” for this kind of theft to occur, Link said. He added that he spent hours on the phone with DeKalb County police, who put out alerts across the metro area.
Foster said he kept the men with the vases occupied while a co-worker called police. Officers arrived and arrested three men: Javier Brock and Samuel Ortiz, both of Decatur, and Jeffrey Nobles of Stockbridge. They were booked into Gwinnett County Detention Center.
Louise Pressley was one of the men’s alleged victims. She discovered the theft Friday when she visited her husband’s grave. A vase bearing a cross, signifying the 30 years her husband spent in the Army, was gone.
"It just breaks my heart, really,” Pressley told Channel 2. "It's just ridiculous. I don't know why anybody would want to do something like that."
The vases had a scrap value of about $1,500, Foster said.
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