Students arrested in Llano County after cemetery desecration
LLANO — A pair of 16-year-old Llano High School students were sent to a juvenile detention center in Kerr County this week after sheriff’s deputies accused them of desecrating graves at the historic Six Mile Cemetery. Chief Deputy John Neff of the Llano County Sheriff’s Office said the boys were arrested Jan. 15 after investigators Laurie Brock and Sgt. Bucky Boswell received a tip the students were responsible for damage discovered at the cemetery Dec. 16.
Sheriff’s Investigator Glenn Williams said vandals kicked over several headstones and damaged doors and windows at an old school building at the burial grounds off RR 2323 southwest of Llano.
Williams said the damage occurred sometime overnight.
“Criminal mischief of a human burial or public monument is a state jail felony,” Neff said.
According to state statutes, state jail felonies are punishable by up to two years in a state jail and a fine not to exceed $10,000, though the suspects likely face punishment under juvenile-justice laws.
Six Mile Cemetery was started in the early 1880s on land donated by the farming family of William and Jane E. Stephens, according to state historic records. The earliest marked grave belongs to a 5-month-old infant who died in 1883.
Also buried at the cemetery are veterans of the Civil War, frontier battles, World War I and World War II.