Chesapeake cemetery thief: I had a baby to feed

CHESAPEAKE

Some 30 witnesses sat or stood against the walls outside Circuit Courtroom 4, waiting as long as two days for their two minutes on the witness stand.

They were there because someone had stolen bronze flower vases off their loved ones' graves at Greenlawn Memorial Gardens on Airline Boulevard in order to sell them to scrap yards.

Court records show Michael R. Cardona - jobless, homeless, living out of a van - told police he needed the money to feed his infant daughter. The 24-year-old Portsmouth man said he apologized to the occupants of each grave and replaced the flowers in the holes he left behind.

But the living may need to wait until sentencing to get their apologies.

The witnesses are the children and grandchildren, spouses and siblings and sometimes the parents of those in the graves, they told Judge Bruce Kushner. The cemetery had reported more than 100 vases taken in about a month last year.

On Thursday, Kushner convicted Cardona of 70 grand larceny and related offenses.

The judge said there was enough evidence to convict but withheld judgment on 42 similar charges against Holly M. Chandler, 21, of Chesapeake until he sees a background report on her. She testified - as Cardona told police when he was arrested - that she didn't participate in the thefts but couldn't stop her boyfriend.

Sentencing was scheduled for Aug. 30.

Police arrested them the night of Sept. 28 with their 3-month-old daughter and 32 vases in a van inside the cemetery. Cardona confessed, according to testimony and court records, and showed police the graves he had stolen from. He also said he had stolen vases previous times, testimony showed.

Kushner dismissed for lack of evidence about 30 misdemeanor charges of damaging property against both.

Cardona said he would connect a grinder to the van's battery, chop up the vases and sell them to scrap yards, police testified.

"I asked him why," said Anthony Blount, the arresting officer. "And he told me he had a baby, and to buy formula and diapers."

Witnesses waiting for hours outside the courtroom - some leaning on canes and one in a wheelchair - cheered when a court bailiff summoned one of them. It was like that person had won the lottery, one joked. And they cheered and clapped again when they emerged moments later, some with arms raised in mock triumph.

"We've got something in common - that's about it," said Robin Lewis of Portsmouth after his testimony. A vase was stolen from his son's grave.

"It's kind of bad when you mess up a grave site," he said. "Somebody has to take care of it."

Betty Shearin of Chesapeake talked about her shock at discovering the vase missing from her husband's grave. Keeping it filled with flowers from a dollar store probably wouldn't have meant much to her husband, she said, but it did to her and their two children.

"I had no idea anybody would steal something from a grave," she said outside the courtroom. "I never thought about it. I didn't think there was anything of value out there."

The two defendants originally faced almost 200 charges between them, punishable by more than 2,000 years in prison. It took two court clerks, taking turns, 90 minutes to read aloud the charges to start the two-day trial.

Judge Kushner called the case unusual aside from the large number of charges.

"This is an emotional case; it goes beyond the norm of scrapping," he said.

"He wasn't just stealing from a cemetery - he was stealing from all these families.... I hope he's seen these past two days the impact on all these people."

Similarly, Shearin earlier had said she hoped the trial would make the defendants change their behavior before it's too late.

"They're young," she said. "They made a mistake."

Matthew Bowers, (757) 222-5221, matthew.bowers@pilotonline.com