Police recover 90 stolen headstones

Ninety copper headstones worth more than $100,000 were stolen from an Orange County cemetery by thieves who tried to cash in on the tablets before tossing them into a recycling pile, police said Wednesday.

Forest Lawn Memorial-Park, Cypress reported the theft last week after the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department informed it that the unused headstones had been rescued from a recycling plant, said Cypress Police Sgt. Tom Bruce.

Forest Lawn had been storing the headstones in a maintenance yard, and officials there did not notice them missing because they had not conducted an inventory for nine months, Bruce said.

-- Christine Hanley