Existing comment:
James Marshall Barnett
February 11, 1932 - January 3, 2008
I saw this monument when I was looking for the nearby Tim Russert one. I was impressed! Unfortunately, the monument was stolen a few months later.
From http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/2011/03/26/AFRAeIfB_print.html
D.C. cemetery's 800-pound bronze monument disappears
By Martin Weil, Saturday, March 26, 9:20 PM
When it was in place, in its sculptured bronze glory, it was a monument that towered above a grave in a historic Washington cemetery. Now, after vanishing, it might be seen as something of a monument to the resale value of metal and the craving for cash.
The rector of the church that owns Rock Creek Cemetery in Northwest said authorities suspect that the massive monument, which disappeared this month, may have been cut up and "sold as scrap and melted down."
The sculpture, a representation of nature, marked the grave of Washingtonian Jim Barnett, who died in 2008. "Everybody that I've told about this is just appalled," his wife Camille, a former District official, said Saturday. "I was completely shocked."
She said the memorial was 12 feet tall and included 800 pounds of bronze. The Rev. Rosemari Sullivan, rector of St. Paul's Rock Creek Episcopal Parish, which operates the cemetery, said "it took 12 men and a crane" to install it last year.
She said she had "no earthly idea" how it was taken, apparently between March 10 and March 12. The cemetery's gates are locked at night, she said.
Lt. Shane Lamond of the 4th Police District said last week that detectives were "actively working" on the case.
Those who took the sculpture, Sullivan said, "apparently had a very good idea of what they wanted." Bronze plates from columbaria at the cemetery were stolen about two weeks earlier, she said.
In recent years, thefts of copper wiring and plumbing fixtures have been widely reported and blamed on the high resale prices for copper. Bronze is an alloy, but its primary component is copper.
Barnett said she still hoped that the monument might be found intact. |