House of horrors discovered with a great deal of human skulls, baby stays and our bodies in cellar
Infant skulls, rotting bodies and hundreds of bones found in a Pennsylvania man’s basement after police bust his grotesque grave-raiding house of horrors
Human skulls have allegedly been discovered in their hundreds along with human remains inside the home of a man accused of desecrating mausoleums and gravesites.
Jonathan Gerlach, 34, is faced with more than 500 charges for the alleged sick crimes, which are said to have begun around Halloween. Authorities have described it as a ‘horror movie come to life.’
Gerlach allegedly stored away a collection of long bones, skulls, decomposed torsos and mummified feet. He is said to have kept his findings stored in his basement and another stashed away in a storage locker.
The detective on this case, County District Attorney Tanner Rouse said ”Very simply, 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.’
“Detectives walked into a horror movie come to life the other night. This is an unbelievable scene. Understand, some of these are 200 years old. Some obviously much newer… It’s going to be quite some time before we have a final answer.”
According to Rouse, some of these remains were historical artefacts and aged around 200 years old while some are so recent that one of the corpses was found with a pacemaker.
The 34 year old, Pennsylvania local faces more than 500 charges relating to the alleged offence.
“I grieve for those who are upset by this, who are going through it, who are trying to figure out if it is, in fact, their loved one or their child — because we found remains that we believe to be months-old infants — among the those that he had collected, they were in various states. Some of them were hanging, as it were. Some of them were pieced together, some were just skulls on a shelf.” said Rouse.
Police have reported that over 26 mausoleums and vaults had been forced open by the man, where at Mount Moriah Cemetery, Gerlach allegedly began a monthlong raid of tombs.
Gerlach’s alleged sick adventure was said to have ended after being followed out of the graveyard with a crowbar and to a car visibly filled with bones and skulls where he was arrested. Upon arrest Gerlach was allegedly found with a burlap sack with the remains of two small children which were among three skulls and an array of bones.
Gerlach then allegedly informed police that he had taken with him 30 sets of human remains and showed them from which graves he had taken them. He was charged with 100 counts of abuse of a corpse and receiving stolen property, along with multiple counts of desecrating a public monument, desecrating a venerated object, desecrating a historic burial place, burglary, trespassing and theft.
He has also been charged with criminal mischief and is being held on $1 million bond. No lawyer was listed in court records. Police alleged Gerlach targeted mausoleums and underground vaults at the 1855 cemetery.
Gerlach had allegedly been a member of a group titled ‘human bones and skull selling group’ on Facebook though it is unclear as to whether he ever sold his own or purchased any of the remains listed in this group.
The local police chief Henry Giammarco described the case as one of the most disturbing he had seen in his career adding, “Rest in peace is rest in peace, and this is definitely something that tears at your heartstrings.”
