Cops: E. Farmingdale grave site hit twice

Kathy Peranzo, still reeling from the trauma of having a flower vase snatched last month from her son's grave at St. Charles Cemetery in East Farmingdale, is heartbroken yet again now that the replacement vase has been stolen, too.

"How much can a family take?" the East Meadow woman said. "I'm not going to cry. I'm beyond crying. Every tear is out of my body."

Suffolk police, who have stepped up patrols, are investigating at least a dozen thefts of vases -- including this one -- committed in the past week but haven't made any arrests, according to a department spokesman.

In November, the grave of her son, Philip Peranzo, was one of nearly 160 grave sites at two Farmingdale-area cemeteries pilfered by metal thieves.

Peranzo, a schoolteacher, died in 2006 at age 32 of colon cancer, and his survivors have made frequent pilgrimages to St. Charles to honor his memory.

It was during a visit Monday that his father noticed that the replacement vase had been vandalized, the flowers strewn everywhere.

"We leave our families there to be protected and they're not," Kathy Peranzo said. "This is disgusting. . . . I just want to lay under a blanket and not come out."

In the latest cases, 10 bronze vases were vandalized Friday and two on Monday. The vases, some of which are worth hundreds of dollars each, are attached to grave markers.

The other cemetery that had vases taken last month was Pinelawn Memorial Park in Pinelawn.

A police spokesman declined to say whether investigators have a suspect or suspects in mind.

A spokeswoman for the cemetery, who would give only her first name, Christine, said the cemetery was stepping up security, but she declined to elaborate so as not to tip off vandals.

"We are doing as much as possible, and beyond that, we're not at liberty to discuss our security measures," she said. "We don't want to compromise them."

The cemetery owner, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, was to be closed through the new year, its answering machine said.