Ginnie Artwork- Do you know Will?

[kyleharmon]

Found this in the big room just short of the 1100' arrow. I'm not sure how long it has been there, we found it Wednesday evening (7/24). Hopefully someone can do some detective work as we all know this is completely needless and unexceptable. Very sad indeed.

http://youtu.be/OnYX0J_9tPc

[MORGAN]

Examination of the registration list at Ginnie ought to yield a very short list of suspects. It's to be hoped that criminal prosecution under Florida's cave vandalism law will follow.

[whodunit68]

Examination of the registration list at Ginnie ought to yield a very short list of suspects. It's to be hoped that criminal prosecution under Florida's cave vandalism law will follow.

Starting and ending when? We don't know when this person did this. I hope you are right that it is easier than I think it will be.

[MORGAN]

Ending at the time it was found, and working backwards. If it's close to the line or in a place where it would be hard to miss, probably someone on this board or another Ginnie regular will be able to say, "I dove there on this date, and it was not there." That would give the time frame. How many people named Will, William, etc. registered during that period? Hopefully one.

You are right - without an admission of guilt or a witness, it will be hard to prove that a specific person did this, especially if there is more than one Will registered during the time frame. And then there's the possibility that the miscreant came in by boat and didn't register. But my detective lieutenant wife has gotten a lot of convictions in cases which started with less evidence than this.

Perhaps at the least, the idiot can get a phone call from the police or maybe Ginnie management saying, "We know that you were diving at Ginnie during the time period when someone defaced the cave with your name. That is a violation of state law, we take it seriously, and we will be doing whatever we can to identify the offender and file criminal charges." That might at least scare them enough to keep them from doing it again.

Or not...idiots are something there's no shortage of.

[Zinc]

Erased

[JTB]

I dont remember seeing that when there in march. Some people just dont get it.

[phillip1]

Saw the same thing yesterday in a cave here in the DR people who do this should be punished very harshly. Absolutely unacceptable!!!

[scubagrunt]

i complained about that when i saw it on july 6th 2013, sorry guys it's been there for a while now. shameful

[mag3]

You are right - without an admission of guilt or a witness, it will be hard to prove that a specific person did this, especially if there is more than one Will registered during the time frame...

Assuming, of course, that "Will" is the actual perp's name... it could be someone/something totally different. The only thing we know for sure is that whomever did this had enough gas to get them that far in, and out again.

OP: Did you witness any other damage (i.e. fresh fin/hand prints, drag marks, scratches on the walls & Goethite) that might indicate a person that never had cave training (i.e. OW diver), or very poor cave training?

[kyleharmon]

OP: Did you witness any other damage (i.e. fresh fin/hand prints, drag marks, scratches on the walls & Goethite) that might indicate a person that never had cave training (i.e. OW diver), or very poor cave training?

As you can see in the video, the area on the floor definitely has some other damage. It's hard to say if it was caused at the same time or not. It looks like the many, many other scarred up places in Ginnie, just with the added graffiti. It's my opinion that the person has at least some overhead training. I do not think it's a reasonable assumption that an OW diver could have swam 1100' into a flowing cave, down a jump thats not extremely obvious, and wrote their name in the mud and made it back out. Although stranger things have happened I suppose. Very poor cave training however, seems relatively common unfortunately.