FReepathon day 40.
Two percent a day keeps the 404 away.
Posted on 08/10/2014 12:34:48 PM PDT by lowbridge
A grave-robber has been jailed after a grieving mum placed a tracking device inside a teddy bear at her murdered son’s resting place.
Andrew Balshaw was locked up for 12 months after he admitted stealing from 16-year-old Andrew Holland’s grave.
Joan Holland was so devastated by losing her son, who was stabbed to death outside a takeaway in 2007, that she has visited his grave every Sunday to place items on it she thought he would like.
But Mrs Holland and her family became frustrated and angry that the gifts kept going missing.
After they found the grave completely stripped on Mother’s Day this year, they decided to act.
Mrs Holland’s son Martin bought a £200 tracker and they stitched it into a teddy bear, leaving it on the grave in St Michael’s churchyard, Bolton, Greater Manchester.
And the move worked.
The next day, at 5pm, Mrs Holland’s daughter-in-law received an automatic alert warning her the teddy was being moved and the family was able to track the teddy’s route via GPS.
It led them to Balshaw’s flat where police arrested him and recovered the bear, as well as other items including an angel which had been stolen from the grave six months earlier and a porcelain dog belonging to the family.
(Excerpt) Read more at mirror.co.uk ...
That was smart.
It is smart, but what’s with the perp? He must be a crazy person. To steal little mementos from graves like that. Was it just this one guy’s grave, or others too?
Grave robbing is an old profession.
The perp is not only crazy; he's sick and mean. What a combination.
He got a year for the theft so I assume he’s over 18. Family should gather to “welcome” him on his release date.
He always wanted to be an archaeologist.
Wonder what the gf thought knowing her gifts came from one’s grave.
I remember when a local cemetery would clean up after a service and whatever flowers the family left behind would be trashed. It was one of those that cared more about easy mowing than the families. Anyway, the garden club would remake the flower arrangements and give them to a church. Today, there would probably be all sorts of lawsuits.
Was he ALSO the KILLER??? Seems to me there is reason to believe this.
From what is posted above there were several things from that one grave, he probably had other things from other graves too. Weird.
There was a woman caught stealing children’s things off a child’s grave here in the US within the last year or so. There was a camera in the cem. She wanted them for her own gifts for grandchildren or some such, IIRC.
BTW: “other people’s graves in his bin.”
OK, that woman is taking cheapness to a new low. “Here honey, I stole this for you...from a grave!”
#creepygrandma
Wow... good thinking...
Was this stuff supposed to just pile up into perpetuity? At what point does the place become Hoarder Heaven? Wouldn't the cemetery need to purge on a regular basis?
Used to be that people just planted a tree somewhere..
Clutter Cemetery
I’d like set a trap to grab the thief by the ankle. They wouldn’t come back to that graveyard for a while.
Actually, yes they usually do purge at some point. The idea is not to do it immediately, nor as the poster above said some cem trashing the flowers right after the funeral.
I think many active cem’s will purge seasonally, as major holidays come up.
I’ve seen many smaller cem’s or graveyards let trash accumulate at the edge of their property. Pathetic.
http://guardianlv.com/2014/04/ohio-woman-caught-on-camera-in-cemetery-theft-video/
This is it in summary. Our graveyard group passed around a different article, but that is the gist of it.
Just makes for a pile of trash that someone has to clean up eventually, or else the site becomes overrun by blight.
Trees or other long-lived plantings, OTOH, are memorials that can be appropriate, solemn reminders for decades. Then again, some might move from teddy bears and on to kudzu.
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