Nocket’s vandalism in Oregon’s Crater Lake National Park.
What is it with damaging national parks lately? In the latest instance of abuse of our sacred places, Casey Nocket of San Diego, Calif., plead guilty to seven federal misdemeanor charges this week after she unleashed her “art project” on some of the country’s finest parks. She painted a number of different rock outcroppings and formations with abstract faces and characters in a serial vandalism string she dubbed “Creepy Tings,” using acrylics and markers instead of chalk.
Nocket’s handy work was found in Death Valley and Yosemite in California, Utah’s Zion and Canyonlands, while she also hit Rocky Mountain National Park and Colorado National monument in Colorado. Her defamation of Crater Lake National Park in Oregon rounded out her crime spree.
Most of her vandalism was committed in the fall of 2014 and it angered environmentalists and lovers of wild places so much she had an Internet meme created after her, below:
She was tracked down after Reddit posted a photo on its site from a backpacker who snapped a picture of Nocket defaming an area near Vernal Falls in Yosemite. The site’s users matched Nocket’s work to her social media sites that included Instagram and Facebook. A special agent with the Park Service named Steve Yu picked up the trail and followed through with the investigation.
The 23-year-old Nocket was sentenced to two years of probation and 200 hours of community service. During her two-year probation she isn’t allowed to step foot within public lands operated by the National Parks Service, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Army Corps of Engineers and has to write a formal apology to the Parks service. All conditions are part of a plea deal. The cleanup of her paintings was costly and required the use of sandblasting and chemical stripping, which officials said often causes further damage to natural features within these parks.
