Jonathan Gerlach faces over 450 counts for stealing human remains from Mount Moriah Cemetery, including infants and victims dating back two centuries. Police arrested him with a burlap bag containing 30 bodies after discovering more than 100 skulls and bones at his home and a storage locker. The investigation links him to a Facebook group selling bones, where suspects used sledgehammers to desecrate graves, some containing modern artifacts like pacemakers. This disturbing case highlights the horrific scale of grave robbing and the ongoing effort by medical examiners to identify these stolen remains. [Automatically generated summary]
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Grave Robber Arrested00:04:57
This is a crazy story.
This dude got arrested for being a grave robber.
This is nuts.
Just when you think you've heard it all, this case out of Delaware County might make your stomach turn.
Prosecutors are accusing a man of stealing dozens of sets of human remains.
This is the 10 o'clock news.
I'm Jason Martinez.
I'm Sheba Russell.
Investigators say they found human skulls, mummified feet, and decomposing body parts at the suspect's home.
Chris O'Connell has more on the story that is disturbing on so many levels.
Delaware County prosecutors say he was a real-life grave robber straight out of a horror movie.
A man arrested for stealing human remains from graves, some as young as infants, others 200 years old.
You ain't even safe in death.
He was digging up graves 200 years old.
Very simply, detectives walked into a horror movie come to life the other night.
Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse outlining the twisted alleged crimes of 34-year-old Jonathan Gerlach of Lancaster County.
He's accused of stealing human remains from 26 mausoleums and underground graves at the historic Mount Moriah Cemetery in Yaden.
Yeah, I never really understood some cemeteries, they have like security guards.
Now I understand why you got Mr. Gerlach in there digging them up at night.
That is crazy.
That is nuts.
Some of the remains as young as infants.
Some of these are 200 years old.
Some of them obviously much newer.
There's one that had a pacemaker still attached to the body.
I bet you say, ooh, look at the date on this tombstone.
This one is 200 years old.
I'm going to dig it up and see what it looks like.
You know that's what he's thinking.
He's probably trying to get some, you know, some jury.
That's what I was thinking.
Yeah, man.
Probably got some kind of drug habit, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Think about it.
Grave robbers, they're digging up these bodies, getting the gold, getting the silver.
You know, look, this one's over 300 years old.
I can dig this one up.
Nobody will never know.
I get all the gold, all the silver.
Take it to the pawn shop, make me a little money to support my habit.
Oh, yeah, ain't nobody going to a 300-year-old grave.
I'm going to go see great-great-grandpa or whatever.
Yeah, everybody that know him, they dead.
Dead and gone.
This dude digging up babies.
What an idiot.
That's sick.
Yeah.
It's both sick, but that's crazy.
Yeah, but he is an idiot.
Yeah.
Prosecutors say it was old-fashioned police work that cracked the case.
After a series of grave desecrations at Mount Moriah, Yaden police set up a sting.
On Tuesday, Gerlach was arrested at the cemetery with a burlap bag full of 30 human remains, many of them children.
What up a grave robbing sting?
Yeah, why would you return back to the scene of the crime with all the private bodies you dug up?
Well, he's probably been doing it for a long time, Kevin.
Yeah, I said, look, nobody's even noticing.
He let his guard down.
He said, I'm going to go back out there.
I'm going to go to the other grave.
1815.
I know it's got some gold in there.
Yeah, but why would you bring the bodies back?
Unless, I think he had been loading up all that night.
Yeah, the cops didn't catch him till he dug up like 30 graves.
Yeah.
When police searched Gerlach's home in Ephraim, Lancaster County, they found more than 100 human skulls, large bones, and other skeletal remains, as well as jewelry taken from graves.
See?
There you go.
But, you know, think about it.
I think the skulls are worth way more than that jewelry.
On the dark way up?
Mm-hmm.
Think about it.
You dig up a Confederate general.
You get $5,000 for that skull.
Eight more skeletons were found in a nearby storage locker.
Detectives have recovered an awful lot of bones at this point, and we are still trying to piece together who they are, where they are from, and how many we are looking at.
And it's going to be quite some time before we have a You ain't never solving that case.
Yeah, unless he kept a strict inventory.
And I don't think he's the record-keeping type.
This is in Delaware, right?
Yeah.
There ain't gonna be no Confederate general up there.
It's gonna be a bunch of damn Union soldiers.
Digging Up Loved Ones00:04:23
Yeah, man, that's sick.
He's gonna have to cooperate.
If he hopefully cooperates, even if he cooperates.
It's late at night.
It's dark when he's doing this stuff.
And he's got over 100 skeletons.
How is he going to recall all that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
What a sick guy.
Final answer.
Those who walk through the cemetery near Cobbs Creek Park recently noticed graves being desecrated.
One guy tells us this mausoleum was repaired just after it was burglarized.
This dude's breaking into mausoleums?
Yeah, he's probably taking a sledgehammer, bust a hole inside the wall, then he can climb in now.
That's crazy.
I mean, that's crazy.
You're making that cemetery hot for other grave robbers.
You see what I'm saying?
Yeah.
He's not looking out for his fellow grave robbers because you make that place hot.
You break it in a mausoleum.
He's got to be doing this with somebody else.
Because you know how long it take you to take a shovel out there and dig up a grave?
It's not like he's driving a damn caterpillar truck out there.
Just dig it up.
Yeah, I know.
You know what I mean?
He's got to have some help.
Yeah.
Yeah, he can't.
Because, man, yeah, you're right.
That dude probably grabbed him some Mexins from Home Depot and said, hey, come on.
Yeah, that was crazy.
I should have said that.
We saw some graves that had been obviously opened or disturbed.
Kind of hoped it was just maintenance work and stuff, but I always suspected that there might be some kind of, you know, grave robbing, for lack of a better term.
Yeah, he's got a sick Cincinnati like that.
See, this dude, he's sick.
He thinks it's funny.
He's just like me and you.
Over here laughing, cracking jokes.
Gerlach is charged with more than 450 counts on charges of burglary, abuse of corpse, and theft.
Authorities are not clear what he was doing with the remains, but they are looking at a Facebook group devoted to the sale of human bones, where Gerlach was seen holding several skulls.
Wow.
This dude created a Facebook.
He's still trying to sell stolen remains on Facebook.
Yeah, you can set up a Facebook store, huh?
No, you could get caught.
Hey, man, it's a dude.
He's got a Facebook group.
He's selling skulls on there.
Why wouldn't he sell them a dark way up?
Look at this skull.
It got a tooth hanging out.
Yeah, like a molar.
I actually got an implant right here.
I lost my molar.
That's probably implant.
All the other teeth in the jaw is gone.
That's probably implant.
This dude set up a Facebook page.
That's crazy.
You're like, hey, come.
Someone please come arrest me.
He's screaming for help.
Yeah, that's why he did.
He's going back to the cemetery with a damn bag full of human remains, digging up more graves.
Hey, someone, please catch me.
I can't stop myself.
Gerlach was seen holding several skulls.
The Delaware and Lancaster County medical examiners are now trying to date and identify all of the remains and possibly find affected families.
We all have loved ones that pass.
Like, rest in peace is rest in peace.
And this is definitely something that tears your heartstrings.
Gerlach is being held in the Delaware County Jail on a million dollars cash bail.
Prosecutors say there's a very good chance he may have burglarized other local cemeteries.
In Yaden, Chris O'Connell, Fox 29 News.
He ain't gonna get no real time.
You don't think so?
Nah.
He didn't.
It's like a victim.
Well, I won't say it's a victimless crime, but.
I mean, it's not a victimless crime because somebody goes to the grave.
They're going to go see grandpa.
You go out there and say, damn, somebody stole grandpa.
Isn't it crazy how nobody's called the cops?
Say somebody dug up my loved ones?
Like somebody called.
No, people don't go see their loved ones.
It's depressing.
Yep.
You know what I'm so depressed about going to a grave?
Be thinking like, man, that's going to be me next.