What is a little known fact about your favorite rock band?
Everyone knows how I feel about Lynyrd Skynyrd, and everyone knows about the plane crash in 1977 that killed frontman Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and backing vocalist Cassie Gaines.
But only serious fans seem to know that in June of 2000, vandals broke into the crypts of Ronnie and Steve at Jacksonville Memory Gardens in Orange Park, Florida. Ronnie’s casket was removed from its crypt and dropped on the ground, although mercifully not opened. The bag containing Steve’s ashes was removed from its urn, ripped open, and some of his ashes spilled onto the grass.
The vandals were never caught, and their motive remains unknown — although it’s been widely speculated that they may have wanted to find out if a longstanding rumor that Ronnie was buried in a Neil Young t-shirt was true, that doesn’t explain the horrid desecration of Steve’s remains.
Following the incident, Ronnie and Steve’s families had their remains moved to Riverside Memorial Park in Jacksonville — today also the resting place of their bandmates Allen Collins, Leon Wilkeson, and Billy Powell. Ronnie’s casket is now sealed inside a massive concrete vault, and his gravesite is patrolled by security, to ensure that he is never disturbed again.
It was just such a stupid, senseless, disrespectful act of vandalism, and I hope karma hits whoever perpetrated it good and hard.
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