Facebook post helps return stolen gravestone

GREENE COUNTY, AR (KAIT) - A gravestone that was vandalized and removed from a local cemetery several years ago is back in its rightful place.

It was a Facebook post on the Greene County Sheriff’s Department’s page, up no more than an hour before someone commented with a phone number, that led Sheriff David Carter to a cemetery caretaker with all the right record books.

"It was amazing to get this and get it back to where it belongs," Caretaker Bill Reinhart said.

We use Facebook to connect with old friends, buy new things, and find lost items.

"Facebook can be a very useful tool, if you use it right," Sheriff David Carter said.

That is exactly what Sheriff Carter and his deputies did, using their roughly 13,000 followers to solve an old case.

"One of my deputies found the headstone laying in the middle of a gravel road," Carter said. "They went around and tried to find the owner, where it belonged, and never could, so this morning we decided to put it on Facebook."

And in less than an hour, someone posted the name and number of Bill Reinhart, Caretaker of Beliew Hill Cemetery in Lafe.

"It was amazing to get a phone call from the sheriff's department telling me they had a tombstone that had been removed from here," Reinhart said.

After a quick records check, Reinhart found where W. W. Warner's headstone used to sit, and once he gets it cleaned up and repaired, where it will sit from now on.

“I don’t know in particular that family,” Reinhart said. “But if they see that, they’re going to know it’s back up where it should be.”

Sheriff Carter wanted to thank everyone who commented on the post and helped in putting the headstone back where it belongs.