Cemetery and church damaged in Bartow County

BARTOW COUNTY, Ga - A pastor in Bartow County wants to know who vandalized his church and the cemetery. Some of the gravestones that were damaged are more than 100 years old.

Pastor Forrest Leachman said it looked like someone had a party in the parking lot of the Oak Hill Baptist Church in Rydal. He said that's disrespectful, but the damage left behind was devastating.

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'It's heartbreaking when you see the age of these headstones. The church and how long it's been here and the history that's been destroyed here," said Pastor Leachman.

Many of the headstones that were knocked over or broken are more than a century old. They'd be difficult to repair and impossible to replace.

Pastor Leachmann pointed out one from the 1800s, several others from the early 1900s,

"The different stones they used, the different eras, so much different than we have today, those things are irreplaceable," said Pastor Leachman.

The damage happened sometime between Sunday services and Wednesday evening. Tire tracks can be seen in the grass. It appears whoever drove into the headstones took out part of the wall to the church as well.

As investigators try to track down who caused all the destruction, church members are trying to find people who have loved ones buried in the cemetery whose headstones were damaged.

'You get angry because you think how could somebody do that to a church.  But in the same sense there's forgiveness because you don't know what that person has been through in life," said Pastor Leachman.

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