FRANKLIN, Ky. (AP) -- A southern Kentucky man has been charged with stealing a tombstone from an old cemetery.
Simpson County Sheriff's Detective Eddie Lawson told The Daily News (http://bit.ly/M8FkgF ) that 22-year-old Sean Paul Johnson of Franklin initially told officers the large granite stone with the initials J.J.B. carved into it in block letters was nothing more than a large rock.
Lawson found upturned soil and an overturned gravestone with the name Bell engraved nearby.
Lawson says Johnson then told deputies that because there were no bodies buried in the field where the tombstone came from, it wasn't a cemetery.
Lawson wasn't buying. He charged Johnson with violating graves, theft by unlawful taking over $500 and criminal trespassing.
Johnson was being held in Simpson County Jail. Jail records did not list an attorney.
