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The Prospect Hill Cemetery Board of Trustees thinks someone removed a bronze gate and broke into a mausoleum. The cemetery is now temporarily closed to the public.

The outside of the gravesite is supposed to be protected by a bronze gate.

"I was leading a tour group through the cemetery, and the McGeath Mausoleum is one of the stops on that route, and when we rounded the corner, I noticed that the gate was missing," said Shannon Justice, a member of the board of trustees.

Justice said that was on Saturday.

Chunks of marble slab are missing inside of the mausoleum.

Justice said the cemetery closed for safety reasons on Sunday.

"The marble ceiling panels, over time, has bowed, and they are no longer secured. If one of those was to fall on a human being, it could very easily be lethal," she said.

Justice said it will cost anywhere between $3,000 and $6,000 just to replace the gate.

"It does take specialized skills in order to drill into historic stone without causing additional damage to it," Justice said.

She said people have tried to remove the gate in the past, but this is the first time anyone has been successful.

"They also created an enormous financial hardship for the nonprofit organization that manages the cemetery, and they have forced us to lock our gates to the general public during one of our peak visitor seasons," Justice said.

She has this plea for whoever is responsible: "If the gate is still whole, it still exists, we would very much appreciate its return. Please let us have it back. You don't even have to bring it to the cemetery, let me know where it is and I will come and get it."

Justice said there will be a fundraiser to help repair the mausoleum. Information about that will be on the Prospect Hill Cemetery website.

Prospect Hill Cemetery will also have a volunteer clean-up event Saturday from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. They'll need help with weed eating and collecting debris across the cemetery.

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