Vandalized Tombstone Gets Revenge

[bloodrayne]

Toppled Gravestone Pins Vandal

Georgia - Peggy Eubanks had been visiting the graveyard near Luxomni Baptist Church in Lilburn every day for about a week, even before she heard about recent vandalism there.

After hearing that a man had been arrested over the weekend for turning over headstones, Eubanks cruised through again Wednesday afternoon to make sure her father's fresh grave remained undisturbed.

One gravestone remained toppled Wednesday at the cemetery next to Luxomni Baptist Church in Lilburn. On Saturday police arrested a man who confessed to knocking over headstones. The man was found trapped under a heavy granite gravestone.

Police had arrested Ezekiel Dejesus-Rodriguez, 24, early Saturday morning shortly after pulling him out from under a granite gravestone.

Lilburn police found him about 2:40 a.m. after answering a call about moaning and shouting in the area. They found him screaming "No!" in the graveyard, according to a police report.

Dejesus-Rodriguez lives on Tambec Terrace, about a five-minute walk from the graveyard, according to the report. He said he had been trapped for hours. His leg had been broken and he was going into shock, the report said.

Around him, nine other grave markers had been toppled. He admitted to police that he had been knocking over headstones, and that the last one fell on him. Police charged him with criminal damage to property, after taking him to the hospital for treatment.

The grave of Eubanks' father, William Wendell, escaped desecration, Eubanks said. Her father had been buried there for less than a week.

"You've got to be warped," Eubanks said of the crime. "What kind of enjoyment can you get out of this?"

Justin Garner figures at least four generations of his family lie beneath the soil at Luxomni. Garner came to check on the family plots Wednesday, after word filtered through the church about the vandalism.

Garner pointed out his grandfather's grave, and his great-grandfather's grave, and several others. He's not sure why someone would knock over headstones.

"It's just disrespectful," he said.

The graveyard's well-tended gravel plots are among the oldest in the county. The graveyard dates back to the 19th century, when the Luxomni section of Lilburn had its own post office and the county was still mostly farmland and forests. Old Gwinnett names line the rows —- Kenerly, McKinney, Landress.

One Landress headstone in an empty plot remained toppled. The gravel under it looked like it had been pushed around. A ditch underneath the top corner looked just big enough for a broken leg to fit in.

D.L. Garner, a cemetery caretaker (and a distant relative of Justin Garner) said that was the stone that pinned Dejesus-Rodriguez.

All the other stones had been returned to their proper place Wednesday, he said.

"We have talked to a few people who have put their own stones up. But we can't find anyone who claims to have put someone else's stones up," he said.

"We don't know how they all got put up. And no one has touched that one," he said of Landress'stone.