An infant's remains were unearthed after a family graveyard was vandalized in Clay County, according to the sheriff's office.
CJ Jaushlin was walking through his family cemetery in Middleburg to visit his grandmother who recently passed. As he walked in, he saw family members’ graves crumbled or tipped over and what he thought was a baby doll at his feet.
“She was just like a little doll,” Jaushlin said. "A little chocolate doll. And then I looked over inside her grave and it’s been busted open and they just left her body.”
The infant remains were that of Mikayla, Jaushlin’s niece, who was stillborn in 2007.
“What kind of a person can do this and sleep well at night?" Jaushlin said. "You can’t.”
Both Jaushlin and the sheriff’s office are trying to find the motive for this crime. Nothing was stolen except the peace of the graveyard.
“Destruction of a grave is a serious offense in Florida,” Lt. Jeremy Clark with the sheriff's office said. “Whoever is responsible will be facing some serious charges.”
The family says objects can be replaced, but nothing will cure the resurfaced grief this has brought them.
“You are bringing extra pain on top of pain that was already established years ago when these things happen,” Jaushlin said. “So don’t reinvent pain that has been lying dormant.”
The sheriff’s office said they do know for sure somebody came in and destroyed the graves, but as far as unearthing Mikayla, deputies still need to rule out that it wasn’t an animal’s doing.