Iron crosses, set in concrete footings to honor Confederate veterans at one of South Carolina’s oldest churches, were recently dug up by vandals and hauled away.

Caretakers of the historic Old Sheldon Church near Yemassee noticed the “Southern Cross of Honor” marking three graves at the secluded cemetery were missing on Monday, the latest in a string of vandalism incidents in recent years, The Post and Courier reports.

“Someone dug them up and took the footings. It’s a despicable person who wants to desecrate graves,” Bill Sammons, a volunteer who looks after the ruins, told the news site.

The markers belonged to William Fuller, a second lieutenant in the Confederacy who died in 1902; George Chisolm Mackey, who was killed in battle in 1864; and Edward Mackey, who drowned in 1868, Sammons told The State.

“It’s expensive, and it’s frustrating, and it’s just kind of beyond my level of comprehension why anyone would want to desecrate graves,” he said.

The iron crosses, donated by the Parish Church of St. Helena about five years ago, are collector’s items on the black market, but officials are unsure what motivated the thieves. South Carolina and other southern states have also witnessed a surge in “protest” vandalism against historic Confederate monuments and markers in the wake of a racially motivated shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.

Regardless of the motivation, it’s a felony to desecrate graves or memorials in South Carolina.

“It’s just wrong,” said Jonathan Leader, a state archaeologist. “It would be wrong if it were anybody’s cemetery. It would be wrong if it were anybody’s grave. It’s doubly wrong that it’s a veteran’s grave.”

According to the Post and Courier:

Old Sheldon Church is a National Historic Register site, one of the nation’s earliest and grandest religious buildings. It was first built between 1745 and 1753, slightly before St. Michael’s Church, downtown Charleston’s oldest surviving church building.

Each year, the Sheldon church caretakers host a Sunday-after-Easter service and picnic on the grounds that’s open to the public, Sammons said.

The site has been the target of numerous vandalism incidents in recent years, which eventually prompted caretakers to install security lights.

The Preservation Society of Charleston has also teamed with Clemson University researchers to produce a three-dimensional map of the ruins to provide a blueprint for the site for future reference.

Sammons said St. Helena, which owns the landmark, has repeatedly replaced headstones destroyed by vandals over the years, and he expects the church will also replace the iron crosses, eventually.

“We might wait until all this blows over,” he said.

In the meantime, police are working to track down the vandals, and Leader is advocating a reward for information leading to an arrest to ensure they’re prosecuted.

“If they damage anybody’s history they damage everybody’s history,” he said. “You can’t have this type of behavior.”