By by Lee Weyhrich
When Sara O'Leary visited her parent's grave at Oak Hill Cemetery recently the last thing she expected was to find the flowers she had left there scattered all around.
"The grave was tampered with, the flowers were picked flower by flower and someone threw them all over the place," O'Leary said.
According to O'Leary, a Bay Minette resident, this is the first time in five years something like this has happened.
"She passed away in 2000," O'Leary said. "When she first passed away her grave was vandalized a lot."
According to O'Leary vandals typically steal flowers from the graves.
"They steal the flowers; you can't keep flowers up there," O'Leary said. "I pay top dollar for flowers at the florist. I don't get them at Wal-Mart or Fred's. It is sad that society has gotten so awful that they can't even leave the dead alone."
Mayor Howard Shell agrees with O'Leary.
"It's really hard to imagine that someone would want to steal flowers from someone's loved," Shell said. "Why anyone would want to do that is beyond us."
Shell and the Atmore Police Department try to keep the vandalism problem in check as well as possible, but there is only so much they can accomplish.
"We have regular patrols that drive through the cemetery," Shell said. "You can't station people out there all the time."