Broken glass, bits of a broken minivan, broken headstones and a broken guardrail.
Those were all littering one of the city’s oldest cemeteries Tuesday after a crash over the weekend at Coldwater and Ludwig roads caused thousands of dollars worth of damage and resulted in one drunken-driving arrest.
A minivan somehow flipped over near the cemetery – tucked away near the Interstate 69 exit – about 3:45 a.m. Saturday. It destroyed a metal barricade and landed on some headstones, knocking some over and obliterating others.
The suspected driver of the minivan, 24-year-old Jeffrey James Hall, is accused of fleeing the scene after the crash.
He was later arrested by police on misdemeanor counts of operating a vehicle while intoxicated and leaving the scene of an accident as well as a felony count of cemetery mischief.
“I couldn’t believe it wasn’t a semi, given the amount of damage,” said Douglas Rodenbeck, a former volunteer firefighter for more than 40 years who stopped at the cemetery Monday after he drove by and noticed the damage. “In my experience, I do not know how someone did so much destruction and survived.”
Rodenbeck stopped at the cemetery because his great-grandparents are buried there. He was looking for their tombstones, but he said he could not lift some of the overturned ones to check the names because of their weight.
He said two women were also looking for a relative’s tombstone while he was there.
Lutherans began burying their dead at the cemetery in the 1850s, when a schoolhouse was on the grounds. The last burial there was in 1940. St. Paul’s Lutheran Church takes care of the cemetery, with various members taking turns mowing the lawn and keeping the area clean.
It’s not clear how much monetary damage was done in the accident but is expected to be in the thousands. Officials with St. Paul’s have contacted a company that specializes in building memorials, but no dollar amounts have been discussed.
