John Jefferson
Breanna Puentez, Terry Wood (La Porte County Sheriff’s Office).
After bronze grave markers on veterans’ headstones started disappearing from multiple different cemeteries in Indiana, investigators, including a military veteran, launched a probe last month to find out why. Just before the weekend, authorities in La Porte County said that investigation resulted in two arrests and numerous felony charges.
The La Porte County Sheriff’s Office revealed that 53-year-old Terry Wood was the first of the two suspects to be arrested, this after authorities “encouraged” locals to visit the graves of veterans and were able to generate a tip. Investigators said that at least 15 grave markers at cemeteries, whether Union Mills, Rolling Prairie, Carmel, Pinola, Greenwood or St. Stan’s, had been stolen and that at least one of those markers had been “damaged” during an “attempted” but seemingly unsuccessful theft.
The alleged spate of thefts at graveyards, following a tip with ” credible information[…] identifying a suspect,” apparently led deputies to Wood’s residence in La Porte and even more “evidence” at the home.
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It’s unclear yet what that evidence entails, but it may explain why 25-year-old Breanna Puentez, who was reportedly out on bond at the time of the alleged thefts, was arrested later the same day as Wood’s co-defendant.
According to WGN, La Porte County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Derek Allen slammed the “criminal behavior” as “disgusting” and “unacceptable,” and he hoped that the two arrests would bring U.S. veterans “both deceased and living […] peace and comfort[.]”
“[W]e salute them for their service,” he added, noting that military veteran and Det. Jake Koch led the probe named “Justice, Peace and Salute.”
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In total, Wood and Puentez were each charged with a count of felony theft and 15 felony counts of cemetery mischief.
Under Indiana law, cemetery mischief occurs when one “recklessly, knowingly, or intentionally […] disturbs, defaces, or damages a cemetery monument, grave marker, grave artifact, grave ornamentation, or cemetery enclosure[.]”
Whether that damage leads to a misdemeanor or a felony charge depends on the amount of “pecuniary loss” involved. Because the allegedly stolen bronze grave markers were worth at least $750 but less than $50,000, the defendants are accused of Level 6 felonies.
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