Bones and skulls seen in the back seat of a car near an abandoned cemetery on the outskirts of Philadelphia led police to a basement full of body parts, which authorities say were scavenged by a man now accused of stealing about 100 sets of human remains.
Officials said an arrest Tuesday night culminated a months-long investigation into a break-in at Mount Moriah Cemetery, where at least 26 mausoleums and vaults had been forced open since early November.
Investigators later searched the Ephrata home and storage unit of 34-year-old Jonathan Christ Gerlach and reported finding more than 100 human skulls, long bones, mummified hands and feet, two decomposing torsos and other skeletal items.
“They were in various states. Some of them were hanging, as it were. Some of them were gathered together, some were just skulls on a shelf,” said Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse.
Most were in the basement, authorities said, and they also recovered jewelry believed to be linked to the graves. In one case, a pacemaker was still attached.
Police said Gerlach targeted mausoleums and underground vaults in the 1855 cemetery. It is considered the country’s largest abandoned burial ground, according to Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, which helps maintain the 160-acre landmark in Yeadon that is home to approximately 150,000 grave sites.
Police were looking into the string of robberies when an investigator checked Gerlach’s license plates and found he had been near Yeadon repeatedly during the period the robberies occurred. Police said the break-in was centered on vaults and sealed mausoleums containing older burials, which had been opened or had stone damage to reach the remains inside.
He was arrested as he walked back to his car with a crowbar, police said, and a burlap bag in which officers found the mummified remains of two small children, three skulls and other bones.
Gerlach told investigators he took about 30 sets of human remains and showed them the graves he stole from, police said.
“Because of the enormity of what we’re looking at and the lack of a reasonable explanation, it’s hard to say right now, at this moment, exactly what happened. We’re trying to figure it out,” Rouse told reporters.
Gerlach was charged with 100 counts each of abuse of a corpse and receiving stolen property, along with multiple counts of desecration of a public monument, desecration of a venerated object, desecration of a historic burial place, burglary, breaking and entering.
He is in jail on a $1 million bond. No attorney was listed in court records. A message seeking comment was texted to a mobile phone linked to it.