No Home Security System To Stop Cemetery 666 Vandals
By William Hynes
Seneca, South Carolina is normally a peaceful community in Oconee County known for its “smiles” and the Blue Ridge Arts Center. The city has a slightly higher than average U.S. crime rate but nothing a good system can’t handle. Unfortunately, if individuals and businesses don’t think they need to be protected they put themselves at risk. If you know a criminal element could be a threat to your business or to your home it only makes sense to take precautionary measures.

It Could Happen to You


An example that shows the consequences of believing it “just couldn’t happen to me” came about in the most unfortunate of circumstances.

December 2008 and February 2009 were a couple of months when the unbelievable happened at Seneca’s Mountain View Cemetery. In December, while doing routine maintenance cemetery caretakers noticed that 10 headstones had been knocked over. No one ever suspected that a small city of 8,000 people would need to have surveillance cameras at the final resting ground for their loved ones. The townspeople had no way of finding out who did it.

Needless to say it was a total shock when two months later the cemetery was vandalized again, but this time with viciousness that gave everyone

a feeling of dismay. The second time around, the vandals knocked over 20 headstones and defamed them with drawings of the number 666 and images of the Sigil of Baphomet, the inverted pentagram associated with the Church of Satan.

The lack of any electronic monitoring made it very difficult for the police to catch the perpetrators. It was not until the Seneca Police Department got a tip from the Oconee Sherrif’s Office to keep an eye on two local teenagers. During the last week of February the two young men turned themselves in to the authorities and their confessions led to the arrest of a young woman who was also involved.

Don’t Be a Victim

The charges against the three include one count of malicious damage to real property more than $1,000 but less than $5,000 and two counts of malicious injury to real property less than $1,000. At those costs the cemetery could easily have covered a top notch system package that could have prevented the vandalism from occurring in the first place.

The cost to repair the headstones does not compensate for the grief of the families whose loved ones have been defamed.

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