A Pennsylvania man has been charged with stealing and desecrating dozens of skulls, bones and other remains from a historic cemetery, the authorities said. The local prosecutor described the case as “a horror movie come to life.”
The man, Jonathan Gerlach, 34, of Ephrata, Pa., is facing a host of charges, including 100 counts of abuse of corpse and multiple counts of burglary, theft, trespassing and desecration. He is being held on $1 million bail, Tanner Rouse, the Delaware County district attorney, said in a statement on Thursday.
Detectives recovered what they believed to be more than 100 sets of human and skeletal remains from his home and storage unit, Mr. Rouse said.
A preliminary hearing was set for Jan. 20. It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Gerlach had a lawyer.
Over the past two months, detectives from Yeadon Police Department and Delaware County had been going to Mount Moriah Cemetery, which stretches across parts of Philadelphia and Yeadon Borough, to investigate reports of “burglarized” graves and mausoleums. On Jan. 6, while conducting surveillance, they saw the suspect’s car with “numerous bones and skulls in plain view in the back seat,” Mr. Rouse said.
Mr. Gerlach was then seen leaving the cemetery with a burlap bag, crow bar and other assorted items, the statement said. He was taken into custody and, according to the authorities, confessed to stealing approximately 30 sets of human remains.
After executing a search warrant, investigators recovered what was believed to be more than 100 full or partial sets of human and skeletal remains from the man’s home and storage unit in Ephrata, a borough in Lancaster County, according to the district attorney’s statement.
“Detectives walked into a horror movie come to life in that home,” Mr. Rouse said in the statement. “It is truly, in the most literal sense of the word, horrific. I grieve for those who are upset by this, who are going through this, who are trying to figure out if it is in fact one of their loved ones.”
The Yeadon Borough Police Department said on Friday it was contacting families believed to be affected, specifically those with relatives buried in mausoleums or underground burial vaults.
The cemetery was established in 1855, with more than 150,000 gravesites spread over about 160 acres. An affidavit of probable cause said that 26 underground vaults, blocked by stone or marble slabs, and mausoleums sealed by a door or cinder blocks had been broken or damaged.
It said the burglaries were first noticed at the cemetery in early November, and the police, using license plate readers, found that the movements of Mr. Gerlach’s vehicle coincided with the reports. Cellphone records also traced Mr. Gerlach to the area, the affidavit said.
When Mr. Gerlach was taken into custody on Jan. 6, the authorities found two mummified remains of children, three skulls and other bones, in a burlap bag, the affidavit said.
Mr. Gerlach showed detectives one of the graves where he said he had used the crowbar to access bones, it said. The next day, he led the authorities to seven underground vaults at the cemetery from which he had stolen 30 sets of human remains, the affidavit said.
The Friends of Mount Moriah, a nonprofit preservation group, had alerted the Philadelphia Police Department and Yeadon Borough of the desecrated gravesites. According to the affidavit of probable cause, a member of the cemetery group showed detectives a mausoleum that encased crypts about 10 feet below ground, and where a rope and carabiner had been left behind, apparently by someone who had rappelled into it.
One of the crypts inside, which had held the remains of a girl who was born in 1854 and died in 1869, had been opened and was now empty, the affidavit said.
Another mausoleum held a Monster energy drink can that had been left behind, it said. This provided an opportunity to take fingerprints and a swab for DNA testing.
Mr. Gerlach is also accused of stealing jewelry, some of which was believed to have been taken with the human remains.
The authorities did not identify a motive and said they believed he was acting alone.
Christine Hauser is a Times reporter who writes breaking news stories, features and explainers.
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