Hanover Police are searching for vandals who overturned 13 tombstones, destroying five and causing $10,000 in damage, in the Old Dartmouth Cemetery early last week.
Detective Rick Paulsen said he suspected "juveniles" who had a party with two cases of beer in the middle of the newly-restored graveyard. He said he would not rule College students out as possible suspects.
Paulsen said on Tuesday the police would not dust the beer cans for evidence, but last night WTLS radio in Lebanon, N.H., reported the Hanover Police would dust the cans for fingerprints because they think they know where the beer was bought. Police could not be contacted last night to confirm the report.
Hanover Grounds Superintendent Bill Desch, who oversees the maintenance of the cemetery, said the damage happened sometime between Monday afternoon and Thursday afternoon.
He said his workers discovered the damage when they went to do standard maintenance.
"Some of them were tipped over, and some are fractured," he said. "A couple of them cannot be repaired."
Beer cans and cigarettes were strewn on a knoll surrounded by trees where Paulsen said the vandals had a party.
A trail of overturned and cracked tombstones leads from there out to the entrance of the Old Dartmouth Cemetery next to Full Fare in the Thayer Dining Hall.
The vandals "made a sweep from left to right through the graveyard," Paulsen said.
Desch said the cemetery is a known hangout for local high school students.
Paulsen said, "First of all school's out, and there is a Dartmouth tennis camp going on and the kids are housed in Mass Row. That's being looked into."
He said he has a few leads but added that he was not optimistic that they would "pan out."
Desch said, "It almost seems as if when they had some to drink, they got silly and knocked them over."
Desch said he estimated damage at $10,000 for the restoration of the tombstones and for his crew to replace them.
He added that the insurance policy will cover the damage.
Some of the stones will be righted on their bases, while five will have to be repaired and one will be buried where it fell because it sustained too much damage, Desch said.
