Placing flowers, flags, candles, stones, coins, and other trinkets at a grave is a common way to show respect for a deceased loved one. In fact, for thousands of years, secular and non-secular groups, individuals, and cultures have been engaging in the latter all around the world. What ruins this universal act of love, however, are graverobbers: people who steal the items people leave at a burial site.
Oklahoma couple, Jacob and Tashanna Armstrong, had experienced this exact encounter when they started noticing the objects they placed at the burial site of their stillborn son, McKade Myles, began to disappear. Like other individuals who have lost a loved one, the Armstrongs decorated their son’s grave as a way to honor him and to grieve his loss. With a thief in the picture, however, the Armstrongs wouldn’t be able to do that. In response, the couple decided to set up a camera to catch the graverobber rather than continue to let the objects get stolen or stop placing trinkets at their son’s grave altogether.
After setting up a small camera hidden behind some bushes near McKade’s grave, it wasn’t long until the couple caught a vague look of two individuals near the site. Unable to fully identify the two potential thieves, the Armstrongs repositioned the camera and waited once more.
Once the camera was placed elsewhere, the Armstrongs got a clear glimpse of an elderly man taking a pinwheel from their infant’s grave. While the pinwheel wasn’t very valuable in cost, to the couple, it was valuable in meaning. According to Mrs. Armstrong, “This pinwheel doesn’t mean a whole lot to the next person, but it does mean a lot to the person who placed it there.”
Tired of having items stolen, the couple then got in contact with their local police department for a resolution. Luckily for them, Deputy Chief, James Logsdon, was the perfect officer to investigate the situation. Not only did Logsdon have a sister who was stillborn, but his baby sister was buried in the same cemetery as McKade.
“It would be hard to find a more defenseless victim than someone buried out here,” said the deputy chief.
On a hunt to identify the elderly man, a photo of the graverobber along with information regarding the crime was posted in the local newspaper. Eventually, someone came forward with the name of the pictured individual: 77-year-old Alfred Boyer. Moments later, Boyer was arrested and charged with larceny (theft of personal property). At this time, the other person who was initially filmed with Boyer was never caught nor charged.
Boyer getting caught wasn’t enough for the Armstrongs. They wanted to meet him in person to find out what his motives were as well as to receive the apology they felt they deserved, and they got both. Boyer ended up verbally apologizing and mentioned that he took the pinwheel from the burial site simply because he liked it. The 77-year-old also explained that he doesn’t believe taking the pinwheel made him a bad person.
Boyer’s actions remind us how important it is to be considerate of other people’s feelings. Too often, we only think about how something could benefit us and don’t worry about how it might hurt someone else in the process. Hopefully, Boyer learned his lesson and will refrain from stealing from other graves in the future as placing items at burial sites is a very sensitive, emotional, and valuable act for the family or friends of a deceased individual who partakes in such.
Learn more about this story from the Inside Edition video interview below.
