UPDATE Posted Thursday, March 18, 2010 -- 5:03pm
By Zac Schultz

Waupun: Steve Buchholz has surveyed the damage at Forest Mound Cemetery multiple times, but he still doesn't understand it. "At least 110 years that sat there just fine," he says looking at at toppled headstone. "Now today we got a repair to do."

Steve's family has managed this cemetery for more than three decades.
He's never seen anything like the damage done last weekend. "Of this magnitude, we wouldn't think something like this would happen."

Waupun Police say two juveniles broke 60 headstones, many of which date back to the mid 1800's.

The vandals put quite a bit of effort into their destruction. The headstones may be 150 year old, but they don't just fall over on their own. "This is one of the smaller ones" Steve says while picking up an obelisk. "It's probably 75 pounds."

The cemetery has been busy this week with people checking to see if their loved one's headstones were safe.

Steve says the maintenance workers don't start until April, but may be able to come in early to start gluing headstones together. "We don't practice this because it doesn't happen very often. Our guys will be better at it when they're done fixing 60 of these. We hope we don't have to do it again. We will repair it to the best of our ability. This will never look the same."

Steve says most of the more recent headstones were made of granite and were not damaged. Steve thinks they were too heavy for the vandals to move.

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Posted Wednesday, March 17, 2010 --- 12:15 p.m.

Statement from the Waupun Police Department:

The Waupun Police Dept. is currently investigating the Criminal Damage to (55) grave stone markers in the City of Waupun Forest Mound Cemetery. This damage was reported on Monday the 15th. of March at 7;27AM. and caused significant damage and costs for repairs to restore the damage.

It appears that this damage was done by physically pushing and kicking the grave stones causing them to tip over from their base mounting, some of these stones were very old and broke into several pieces as the result of being tampered with.

At this time the Waupun Police Dept. does have two suspects being juvenile males. Follow up investigation is taking place over the next several days.

As the case progresses information will be passed on reference charges and damage amounts.