John Jefferson
Background: Restlawn Cemeteries and Cremation Gardens in Jacksonville, Fla. (Google Maps). Inset: One of the vandalized tombstones (WJXT).
A Florida man was sentenced to nine months in jail after pleading guilty to urinating on two graves and destroying their tombstones.
Michael Gainer III, 21, was arrested in November months after the graves of Darryl Lundy Jr., 17, and Dari’one Flanigan, 18, were found damaged and vandalized. Both of their graves are in Jacksonville’s historic Restlawn Cemeteries and Cremation Gardens, also known as Restlawn Memorial Park. According to the arrest affidavit, Gainer became a suspect when he was caught spitting, damaging, and urinating on the tombstone in videos posted to his social media feed.
Screenshots from the video of Gainer vandalizing and damaging the graves of Lundy and Flanigan, who were cousins, were sent to each of their mothers, one of whom would visit her son’s grave every other day and maintain the area during her visit. During her Aug. 16 visit, she stated that there was nothing wrong with the grave. Jacksonville police went to the grave on Aug. 19 and observed the damage. The Instagram account that featured the videos was connected to Gainer.
The arrest affidavit stated that Gainer could be seen on one video “damaging the tombstone with a large rock” and “spit, urinated, and damaged the tombstone.” In another, a livestream, he allegedly admitted to doing all of it. He also allegedly stated during the video that he did it “to get someone to respond to his statements.”
Gainer can be seen in the videos, and both mothers identified him in a photo lineup in September.
A day later, the mother of the other deceased boy received word that her son’s grave had been vandalized the same night. Both of the boys’ graves were next to each other. They died of gun violence three years apart — Flanigan in 2019 and Lundy in 2022 — but neither of their cases have been solved.
WJXT, a local news outlet in Jacksonville, reported that both graves were successfully restored.
Gainer originally pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of injuring or removing a tomb or monument but changed his plea to guilty. He was sentenced on Dec. 19 to nine months in jail, 42 months of probation, and 300 hours of community service cleaning graveyards.
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