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Tulip Tree Memorial Stolen From DeKalb County Cemetery

Who Would Steal Trees From Cemetery

(CBS) -- Two tulip poplar trees that were supposed to be planted at the gravesite of a 70-year-old father and grandfather were stolen two weeks ago from a DeKalb County cemetery.

It was Nov. 3 when Randall Shepardson of LaSalle County died. His son Mark says the family decided to honor his father by planting two tulip poplar trees near the gravesite in Sandwich.

The family had tulip trees in the yard of their lake house in Indiana.

"They wanted just a little piece of that home with his new gravesite," Mark Shepardson says.

But in the span of about an hour -- on the afternoon of Nov. 5 -- the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office says those trees were stolen from St. Paul's Catholic Cemetery before they could even be planted.

Shepardson says the family is wondering why anybody would steal those trees.

"I'd like to meet him face-to-face and ask him what he was thinking -- he or she," he says.

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