Cemetery vandals arrested

Community reacts to defaced graves at Lake Church

Hu Daughtry, center, Bill Waters, left, and Virginia Anne Waters survey the damage Thursday done by vandals at the Lake Cemetery near Metter this past weekend. The graves of Daughtry's great-great-grandfather William Bowen, who was a private in the 9th Georgia Infantry Regiment during the Civil War, and of at least eight of Waters' ancestors' graves were among the desecrated.

W 052412 CEMETERY VANDALS 01 — Hu Daughtry, center, Bill Waters, left, and Virginia Anne Waters survey the damage Thursday done by vandals at the Lake Cemetery near Metter this past weekend. The graves of Daughtry's great-great-grandfather William Bowen, who was a private in the 9th Georgia Infantry Regiment during the Civil War, and of at least eight of Waters' ancestors' graves were among the desecrated.

A trio of young vandals were arrested Thursday after confessing guilt in the destruction and desecration of a nearly 200-year-old cemetery near Metter that includes the burial plots of Confederate veterans, police said. Dylan Sapp, 17, and two juveniles, ages 16 and 12 , were arrested in connection with an act of vandalism at Lake Church Cemetery in Candler County, Candler County sheriff’s Chief Investigator Melvin Ivey said. Ivey said information provided by community members allowed him and Special Agent Barry Thompson, of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Statesboro regional office, to identify the suspects.

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