GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A 19-year-old Indiana man accused of defacing the grave site of former President Gerald R. Ford and former first lady Betty Ford has returned to authorities the metallic letter he took from the site last week.

Chris Johnson said he turned in the missing letter "e" to the Grand Rapids Police Department on Thursday, April 4, after seeing reports one day earlier that the site has been defaced and that police were looking for help identifying two suspects.

“I’m sorry it happened and I’m sorry I broke it,” Johnson told MLive/The Grand Rapids Press. “It wasn’t malicious. I didn’t know what it was and now I’m in the works of trying to fix things.”

Grand Rapids police confirmed two individuals came in on their own, returned the missing letter and gave statements to a detective. A report will be passed on to the Kent County Prosecutor’s Office to determine if any charges will be filed.

Johnson said he and a girl he recently met were skateboarding around downtown on Wednesday, March 27, when the two arrived at the grave site outside the Gerald R. Ford Museum, 303 Pearl St. NW. At the time, he said he didn’t know the monument was a grave site, or that Ford was a former U.S. president.

The burial site features the phrase, “Lives Committed to God, Country and Love,” along with the names of the Ford couple and the years of their birth and death. Johnson said he sat on the wall and was spinning the "e" in the word “Committed," when it broke.

Johnson vaguely remembered some of the words on the wall Thursday, but didn’t recognize the names of the Ford couple or recall seeing the dates.

“I thought it was just part of the park," he said. "(The "e") was wiggly and the bracket was broken and it came off."

Johnson said he moved to Grand Rapids from Indiana in the last three weeks. After police released surveillance video of two individuals stopping at the wall prior to it being defaced, he said he began receiving hateful messages from people who recognized him.

“I went through the comments and there was so much hate toward me,” Johnson said. “If someone doesn’t know what it is, that doesn’t make them a bad person. And I’m sorry; it was an accident.”

On Thursday morning, he said he shared his story with an officer at the police department and returned the letter “e," which museum staff previously estimated to have a value of $400. A temporary "e" was on the wall as of Wednesday.

Geir Gundersen, spokesperson for the museum,

“The staff is glad that the person who is responsible decided to bring it back and is cooperating with police,” said Geir Gundersen, a spokesperson for the museum. “We look forward to visitors returning to the museum and grave site.”

“We’re appreciative of the efforts of the Grand Rapids Police Department,” he added.