According to R. Michael Anderson, Jacksonville Times-Union staff writer (from 2000):

"Nearly 23 years after Lynyrd Skynyrd rock singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Steve Gaines were laid to rest at Jacksonville Memory Gardens, vandals broke into a tomb and disturbed their remains yesterday morning.

Authorities did not speculate on a motive, nor whether the intruders may have been deranged fans of Lynyrd Skynyrd seeking a bizarre memento or simply vandals out for a night of destruction.

Clay County Sheriff's deputies found Van Zant's unopened casket on the ground about 3 a.m. at the rear of a marble mausoleum on the northern edge of the cemetery grounds next to the Orange Park Mall on Blanding Boulevard.

A plastic bag containing Gaines' cremated ashes and an urn also were found nearby, said Mary Justino of the Sheriff's Office.

"The bag had a hole in it," Justino said. "At least preliminarily it looks like a very small amount of the cremains may have spilled out of the bag when they pulled it from the urn."

The ash remains of Cassie Gaines, Steve Gaines' sister and a vocalist with the band, were undisturbed. The Gaines siblings and Van Zant, along with three members of the group's road crew, were killed in October 1977 when their twin-engine airplane crashed into a Mississippi swamp.

Family members gathered at the cemetery yesterday morning but declined to discuss the incident with reporters.

"The family is extremely upset," Justino said. "They don't understand why, after almost 23 years, anybody would go to this extent to do something like this."

There have been a few other minor incidents of vandalism to Van Zant's burial tomb, including the theft in February 1982 of a stone memorial with an inscription by country singer Charlie Daniels.

But the break-in at the mausoleum has left the family particularly shaken, Justino said.

"The family has said they need a day or two to decide whether or not they want to put the casket back in [the original mausoleum], with additional security, bury it somewhere else on the property, marked or unmarked, or move it to another burial site," Justino said.

Meanwhile, she said, auxiliary deputies will be assigned to guard the mausoleum grounds for the next two weeks from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. "should anybody get any ideas to do a copycat vandalism or anything like that."

"And at the family's request, the cemetery will pay off-duty officers to provide additional security as well for the next couple of weeks," she said.

In addition to the Van Zant and Gaines vaults, Justino said, vandals also broke walls of three other small vaults containing cremated remains, but those were not disturbed.

Van Zant's nephew, Ronnie Morris of Jacksonville, said yesterday he was speechless upon hearing the news.

"I hope they [the vandals] get help, because they have to be twisted to do what they did," Morris said. "I hope the Lord will forgive them for what they have done."

Joe Carpenter had traveled from Bradenton to Orange Park to show his girlfriend, Jenney Marsh, Van Zant's grave yesterday. "I had never seen it," said Marsh, who was trying to snap pictures of the tomb as deputies shooed her and Carpenter away.

"We're really bummed," Carpenter said. "I think it's wrong, totally wrong. It's disrespectful."

Justino said a heavy object evidently had been used to shatter the stone wall on the front of the marble mausoleum containing Van Zant's casket.

"It was broken into about six large pieces found on the ground," she said. "Investigators said it's unlikely anybody could have broken it with their fist or foot. It's about 2 inches thick."

The intruders may have been frightened off by the first deputy who arrived on the scene shortly after someone telephoned the Sheriff's Office about 3 a.m. and reported hearing unusual noises coming from the cemetery.

The caller had been waiting for someone to pick him up at the mall. He was standing beside a road on the other side of a row of trees separating the cemetery property from the mall.

After the break-in was discovered, additional deputies, investigators and evidence technicians, including a team from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, were called to the scene. They didn't leave until around 4 p.m.,12 hours later.

Times-Union staff writer Mary Maraghy contributed to this report.