Cemetery officials hopeful that vandalism repairs end dark chapter at Green Lawn

The middle-aged man, wearing the same jacket and jeans, walked through Green Lawn Cemetery almost daily to catch a bus.

It was after dark, however, that officials say his visits were more sporadic. And nefarious.

During his wave of destruction from the fall of 2014 into early 2016, Green Lawn Cemetery officials say hundreds of monuments were damaged, including grave markers, obelisks, statues and mausoleum windows.

The cost of the damage has been estimated at more than $1.3 million, if valued as works of art. The repairs — recently completed with the installation of a recreated bust of Gustavus Swan, an Ohio Supreme Court justice — were much less, thanks to volunteer efforts.

Cemetery officials identified the suspect, and detectives with the Franklin County Sheriff's office interviewed him. But night cameras were never in the right position to catch him in the act, capturing only his arrival and departure at times when the desecrations occurred. He was never charged.

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The threat of vandalism remains at all cemeteries, but at historic Green Lawn — the area's largest — worries about a crime wave have subsided, said Randy Rogers, executive director of Green Lawn Cemetery Association.

"It was reassuring to find out who it was. ... We could shift from trying to catch the person to preventing it from happening again."

"It's clearly disrespectful. It's damaging a beautiful place. And it's hurting the family whose names and dates are on those markers. It's a difficult crime to understand," Rogers said.

Vandalism at Green Lawn had occurred even before the mysterious attacks. And some of the earlier damage at the cemetery led to criminal reforms.

Theft of bronze work from the cemetery in 2012 helped spur a law change in Columbus requiring scrap yards to check IDs against an online database of convicted thieves who might be trying to fence stolen materials, said Rogers said.

Then, beginning in late 2014, some 650 monuments were pushed over, broken or defaced. Mausoleum glass was broken.

At the time, it was unclear if multiple people were involved or if a troubling trend had begun. But in 2016, video footage from game cameras used by hunters, along with other surveillance, helped identify the suspect.

"With only six game cameras and more than 155,000 (grave) markers, unfortunately we did not have evidence of him in the act," Rogers said.

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A bust of Swan — a legal scholar, banking pioneer, Franklin County prosecutor from 1821-1823 and briefly an Ohio Supreme Court justice — had to be recreated as a result of the vandalism. Swan, who died in 1860, the year Abe Lincoln was elected president, has a Downtown street named after him, bordering the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral.

The 250-pound Swan bust installed Nov. 5 is enclosed in Neo-Classical columns. Artist Nina Menduni of Syracuse, New York, sculpted Swan's likeness anew in Italian marble from photos and paintings of the original at a cost of $19,000.

'It restores one of the most important pieces of art in the cemetery," said Rogers.

Other costs included $3,500 to repair broken stained glass in a mausoleum.

Since 2016, the cemetery board has spent more than $100,000 on cameras, repairs and extra security patrols, Rogers said. There has been no reported damage since.

"This is kind of the capstone of repairing the damage and closing the chapter of vandalism," Rogers said of the recent placement of the recreated Swan bust. "It's great for future families to have these things and not have them lost forever."

The 360-acre cemetery holds the remains of several Ohio governors; military heroes such as World War I ace pilot Eddie Rickenbacker, for whom Rickenbacker International Airport is named; Samuel Bush, who was the grandfather of former President George H. W. Bush and great-grandfather of former President George W. Bush; and humorist James Thurber.

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The cemetery is recognized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum for its trove of historical mausoleums, sarcophagi and markers.

"I do think people see Green Lawn as a treasure. The founding families of the county are also founding families of the cemetery," Rogers said.

For Amanda Manard, a fine arts photographer from Circleville who was visiting her favorite cemetery last week, the restoration effort is appreciated.

"It's just wrong to destroy things that are the last remnants of peoples' lives," she said. "I'm glad that they have people looking over it more. I'm just happy that they're fixing it."

dnarciso@dispatch.com

@DeanNarciso

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Green Lawn Cemetery completes final repairs following vandalism