Three Woodland residents are facing criminal charges for allegedly stealing from the dead.
Specifically, they’re suspected of taking or concealing bronze vases from as many as 90 gravesites at Monument Hill Memorial Park west of Woodland, and attempting to recycle the metal for cash at a local scrap yard.
Kirsten Farnham, 22; Jamie Douglas Stephens, 26; and Pam Michele Logan, 46; were arrested during the two-week investigation into the thefts, the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office announced Friday.
“It’s kind of sad,” Monument Hill office manager Pat Tippetts said of the thefts, which were reported on April 15. While heard of in larger cities, “you hold your breath that it won’t happen out here. Once you lose someone you love, you don’t want something taken from you again.”
Tippetts said the thefts were immediately noticed that Wednesday, a blustery day that scattered loose flowers, apparently dumped from the stolen vases, across the cemetery grounds.
Valued at $220, the vases are part of a memorial that families can purchase for their loved ones’ final resting places.
As scrap, they’re worth about $1.30 per pound, a price that one of the suspects tried to collect on April 16, the day after the thefts, sheriff’s Sgt. Hernan Oviedo said.
By then, however, sheriff’s detectives had notified local metal recycling yards of the crime, and they were on high alert.
“We knew exactly what they were. We’d seen them before,” said Weston Barklow, manager of Green Zone Recycling in Woodland, where Farnham allegedly arrived with about 20 of the altered vases.
But according to Barklow, they were merely cut in half with the bases removed, their original shapes intact enough to arouse suspicion.
“They were not too keen,” said Barklow, whose shop gets nearly daily visits from people attempting to sell stolen metals for quick cash to support drug habits or other addictions.
“If it’s not bolted, welded or strapped down, it gets up and walks away,” he said. “That’s the world we live in right now.”
Farnham was arrested at the recycling center on suspicion of possessing stolen property. Further investigation led to the arrest Wednesday of her boyfriend, Stephens, on grand theft, conspiracy and stolen-property charges, Oviedo said.
Logan, the third suspect, was taken into custody Thursday on suspicion of conspiracy and possession of stolen property.
All three had bailed out of the Yolo County Jail as of Saturday. Yolo Superior Court records show Farnham is scheduled for arraignment on May 21.
During the investigation, detectives recovered from Stephens’ car 58 intact vases, which Tippetts, the cemetery office manager, said would be returned to some of the families. Insurance won’t cover the others, though, because they belong to the individual owners and not the cemetery, she said.
Despite the losses, cemetery personnel were pleased with the swiftness of the arrests.
“It’s nice to know the police are out there doing their jobs,” Tippetts said. “Maybe it will discourage others from doing the same thing.”
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene