ROSENBERG, Texas – A 63-year-old man has been arrested and charged after police say he stole multiple bronze vases from a cemetery located in the Rosenberg area, and now, the CEO of the gravesite is looking for those missing items to be returned.
Rolando Trevino, a registered sex offender, has now been charged with 17 counts of theft from a grave, displaying a fictitious license plate, and driving while having an invalid license.
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According to the Rosenberg Police Department, officers received numerous reports of bronze vases, which hold flowers from individual gravesites, being stolen from the Davis-Greenlawn Cemetery located at 3900 B.F. Terry BLVD.
During the investigation, the department’s Strategic Enforcement Team began surveilling the cemetery and allegedly witnessed Trevino on the cemetery grounds stealing the bronze vases.
On Thursday, while Trevino was leaving the property, officers said they stopped his vehicle and recovered 17 freshly stolen vases.
Investigators said Trevino confessed to stealing the bronze vases for the purpose of selling them as precious metal items. Investigators said the vases are valued at $1,000 each and are normally attached to headstones.
The cemetery’s CEO Dick Tips says “we’re still in the process, quite frankly, of finding out the amount of damage that was done. But it was just something we were extremely disappointed with.”
Tips says the reward is substantial but did not disclose an amount.
“Precious metal theft is on the rise nationally and we are not immune from these trends. We normally see this in the catalytic convertor thefts, but Rolando Trevino has shown us a new low by stealing from the deceased. It is heartbreaking to read police reports where family members arrive to visit their loved one’s grave sites only to find they have been a victim of theft. I commend our SET team for putting a stop to this and for the many hours of labor they put into this investigation,” the department wrote in a social media post.