Santa Ana Cemetery

The maintenance worker began the day with a walk through Santa Ana Cemetery, past the pinwheel spinning above an elderly couple's tombstone, into the brick and granite niches where a nameplate hung askew. Bending his knees to take a closer look, he saw that the screws had been loosened, and the cremated remains of Deborah Sue Makaryk were gone. He called police and filed a report that listed no leads and offered no evidence, except that Deborah Sue Makaryk was missing. Hours later on Nov.

For three years, his painstaking work to preserve Civil War tombstones in a Santa Ana graveyard was lavished with praise -- from history buffs, veterans groups, cemetery officials and a congresswoman. But now, Gene-o Platt is watching in dismay as a squad of Boy Scouts prepares to undo his labor of love. Under orders from the Orange County Cemetery District, the marble headstones at Santa Ana Cemetery will soon be stripped back to their earlier state.