Grave robbers, a curse of burial grounds for centuries, are back for new valuables: metal ornaments that can be melted down for quick cash as copper and other metal prices climb.

In West Virginia, it was vases bolted to headstones. In Washington State, it was bronze markers on veterans' graves. In Chicago, Illinois it was nearly half a million dollars' worth of brass ornaments.

"It's a crisis of the times," said Ruth Shapleigh-Brown, executive director of the Connecticut Gravestone Network, which monitors cemeteries for theft and vandalism."People are finding a way to make money."