Descendants say the theft of body parts from Pennsylvania grave sites is not a victimless crime

MEDIA, Pa. (AP) — Judy Prichard McCleary believes her ancestors have gone to the afterlife, and that only their bodies are buried at the family mausoleum in a sprawling Philadelphia-area cemetery.

Yet she remains rattled by the discovery that five of their nine crypts were disturbed — and the remains of a great-great-great aunt stolen — in a bizarre string of crimes involving the theft of more than 100 bodies from Pennsylvania cemeteries.

“I believe their souls are in heaven. I still think it’s disruptive,” McCleary said Friday after a brief court hearing in which the defendant waived his right to an evidentiary hearing. Jonathan Gerlach, 34, is charged with two dozen burglary counts after authorities said he stole human remains from gravesites in several counties, along with scores of other charges.

The macabre nature of the crime has captured the public imagination and prompted a wave of news coverage. McCleary knows that police may have more urgent cases to address than crimes against the dead. But she and a relative on hand Friday said it’s still not a victimless crime. She hopes it will encourage lawmakers to do more to stop the sale of body parts online, one of the potential motives in the case.

“To be able to sell body parts on the internet, just appalls me. I think it should be stopped,” she said.

Gerlach, of Lancaster County, was arrested in January near Mount Moriah Cemetery, on the outskirts of Philadelphia. Police said they could see bones and skulls in the back seat of his car, leading them to search his home and a storage unit in Ephrata. They said they found more than 100 human skulls, mummified hands and feet and similar items.

They also recovered jewelry believed to be linked to the graves and a pacemaker still attached to a body. Gerlach’s arraignment is June 3, although his lawyer, who declined to comment on the case, said he was unlikely to appear.

Gerlach, who remains in custody, sported glasses and a tight bun in court Friday, and had a collar-sized tattoo around his neck, as he politely answered routine questions from the judge.

He was arrested in January as he walked back from Mount Moriah Cemetery toward his car with a crowbar, police said. They said they found the mummified remains of two small children, three skulls and other bones in a burlap bag. Gerlach told investigators he took about 30 sets of human remains and showed them the graves he stole from, they said.

Mount Moriah, which dates to 1855, is a 160-acre landmark on the Philadelphia-Yeadon borough line with about 150,000 grave sites.

The Prichard family mausoleum was built there in the early 1900s by McCleary’s great-great- grandfather, Jonathan Prichard, who came to the U.S. from Ireland and became a grocer. Some relatives say he invented the first paper bag, but there is no patent on file, so it remains only a quaint part of the family lore.

Prichard moved the bodies of two children who had died earlier into the mausoleum, before he and other relatives joined them there upon their deaths.

“It just made me sick to my stomach that anybody would want to do that,” McCleary said of the crimes. “I think the man needs help.”

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AP reporter Mark Scolforo contributed to this report from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.