Man says he doused headstones with vegetable oil to ward off evil spirits

A 26-year-old Hayward, California, man is facing more than a dozen felony vandalism charges after he admitted slathering 150 headstones at a Union City cemetery with vegetable oil - an act he told authorities was intended to ward off evil spirits.



The Alameda County District Attorney's Office charged Deepak Sandhar Singh on Friday with 15 counts of felony vandalism in connection with the defacing of grave markers at the Chapel of the Chimes Memorial Park.

Singh told police he bought a two-gallon jug of soya bean oil from a local market and used it on the metal plates on the headstones because they "were evil" and needed to be purified with oil. Singh also left small plastic figures, pieces of string and ribbons at several grave sites and was seen by grounds keepers moving flowers between headstones.



The damaged headstones were discovered on Thursday by cemetery workers. Singh was arrested on Friday and taken to Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, where he later posted bail. Chapel of the Chimes General Manager Harry Blakeman said that the headstones were all cleaned on Friday. Clean up costs were estimated at $5,000. Blakeman said that it was the only time the cemetery had been vandalized in recent years.