Confederate soldiers’ graves believed to be vandalized at Alva cemetery

Historians say someone knocked over statues on top of two graves where confederate soldiers are buried.

Thursday morning, crews discovered the grave sites for two Confederate soldiers vandalized at an Alva Cemetery.

There are five headstones at the cemetery honoring the lives of Confederate soldiers who fought during the Civil War.

People we spoke to whose family members are buried in are extremely upset because they say it’s sacred ground.

Theresa Farabee’s daughter is buried close to the desecrated graves.

“I’m like trying to hold it together because I’ve just been so shook up, you know” Farabee said. “I just, the thought of somebody, you know, it’s hard enough when you … have a child out here.”

About a dozen families rushed to the cemetery after seeing a picture of the vandalized Confederate graves on Facebook.

“You just don’t mess with, you know, somebody’s grave,” Farabee said.

Rosa-Mary Lippincott McCoy’s family is buried at the cemetery and was unsettled to hear about the damages to the graves near her own family members’ final places of rest. She said this isn’t the first time graves have been desecrated at the cemetery.

“To us, this is sacred ground,” McCoy said. “We want it to stop. They keep coming out. We put up cameras. They shoot the cameras.”

We reached out to Sons of Confederate Veterans and were told they will be out to the gravesites over the weekend. Community members are also planning to install cameras around their cemetery.

People we spoke to can’t help but wonder if this terrible act was targeted.

“That’s what was kind of, you know, unusual,” Farabee said. “That they picked, you know, the Confederate one … so kind of wondered what the meaning was behind that.”