MOUNT AIRY, Md. -- A teenager and two adults were charged Wednesday with vandalizing a historic cemetery and removing the skeleton of a six-week-old infant in an act police said may be linked to Satanic ritual.
Police spokesman Chuck Jackson said a 16-year-old Kemptown youth was arrested and charged with grave robbery after the skeletal remains of a 6-week-old baby girl were found along a nearby roadway.
The teenager also was charged with three counts of destruction of property, three counts of destruction of graveyard property and one count of attempted grave robbery.
Police also issued arrest warrants for two adult suspects, but they had not been taken into custody, Jackson said.
Two graves were tampered with and about 60 tombstones were vandalized at Pine Grove Cemetery Monday night, Jackson said. Many of the grave markers were from the turn of the century and were irreplacable.
Jackson said the destruction may be related to Satanic ritual because 'it appears the suspects had Satanical religious cult inclinations,' and because some of the cross-shaped tombstones were deliberately inverted.
'The Satanic angle is being investigated as a possiblity,' Trooper Greg Shipley said Wednesday. 'At this point, there is no evidence there was any direction to the vandalism as to certain graves.'
Police were alerted that vandalism had occurred at Pine Grove by a cemetery vice president Tuesday morning.
While investigating the tombstone vandalism, police noticed two graves had been tampered with. One of the two was dug up and the coffin was pulled out, opened and the remains removed, police said.
Police determined the remains were those of a six-week-old infant who was killed in a fire at a Frederick mobile home in April. It was not known why the vandals chose to exhume the baby's grave.
