Sandusky Police Chief Paul Cowley poses in the middle of hundreds of items recovered from a Carsonville manÕs residence. Police believe most of the items were taken from cemeteries. Eric Levine

No charges have been filed and the suspect had not been arrested as of press time Tuesday.

However, police are confident the pickup load of solar lights, statues, pinwheels, bird houses, shepherd hooks, ceramic animal figures and more were stolen from cemeteries in Watertown Township and other communities.

The suspect was questioned by police Friday night, after a local resident spotted him stealing a solar light from his son's grave in Zion Cemetery in Watertown Township.

Dick Henderson, supervisor of Watertown Township, said he saw the man walk to his son's grave, pick up the light and walk back to his vehicle. At first the man denied taking the light, then tried to explain he got it from another grave, said Henderson, a barber in Sandusky.

State Police Trooper John Daily and Sandusky Officer Brett Lester responded to the scene. The subject admitted to taking the light, and signed a consent form allowing them to search his house in the Carsonville area, said Sandusky Police Chief Paul Cowley.

The officers released the suspect after the interview, and proceeded to his residence. The man was not at the house during the search.

It didn't take the officers long to find things.

"It was everywhere in the house," said Lester. They also found items in the yard and in a shed. But the majority was inside the residence.

They loaded the property into a DPW pickup truck from Sandusky and brought it to Sandusky for storage in the DPW garage.

"There's so much stuff," said Lester. "We have maybe 12 victims at Greenwood. The sheer amount of it, I wouldn't think it all came from Greenwood and Zion. Maybe other cemeteries, at least in Sanilac County."

Sandusky police have been investigating reports of missing property from Greenwood Cemetery for more than a year.

Cowley said his department has sent bulletins to law enforcement agencies in neighboring counties about the recovered items.

Anyone who has had items missing from gravesites is asked to contact the Sandusky Police Department at 810-648-4016. Items that can be identified will be returned to their owners, said Cowley.

Police also recovered dozens of reflectors that may have come from driveways and yards, windshield bug scrapers possibly stolen from gas stations, and other merchandise, such as small metal pill containers, that may have been shoplifted from retail stores.

"He's got a problem," said the chief. "It was all stored at his house."