Pennsylvania Grave Robber Had 100+ Sets of Human Remains in His Home
On Tuesday, January 6, Pennsylvania authorities arrested 34-year-old Jonathan Gerlach in connection with a months-long series of burglaries at Mount Moriah Cemetery, a historic burial ground near Philadelphia. Authorities allege Gerlach systematically broke into at least 26 mausoleums and underground vaults, prying open sealed burial sites and removing more than 100 sets of human remains — some that were buried more than 150 years ago.
Flies and tipsters
Investigators had been tracking a series of suspicious break-ins at the largely abandoned cemetery since early November 2025, when cemetery volunteers and police began documenting evidence of forced entries.
Gerlach had previously come to the attention of authorities after his neighbors reported a high concentration of flies around his property. Suspicion of Gerlach came to a head when another tipster “mentioned a partially decomposed corpse hanging in Gerlach’s basement.” Officers connected Gerlach to several of the November and December vault thefts using DNA found on discarded energy drink cans near broken vaults.
They set up surveillance at Mount Moriah Cemetery, and eventually caught Gerlach on the cemetery grounds carrying a crowbar and a burlap bag, which contained the “mummified remains of two small children, three skulls and other bones,” prompting his arrest.
Charges are mounting
In searches of Gerlach’s Ephrata, Pennsylvania home and a storage unit in Lancaster County, authorities uncovered more than 100 full or partial sets of human remains, including skulls, long bones, mummified hands and feet, and at least two decomposing torsos. In some cases, remains were displayed on shelves — as well as hanging from the ceiling, as the tipster had warned. They also seized jewelry believed to have been taken from graves and a still-attached pacemaker on one body, according to ABC News.
Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse called the discovery “a horror movie come to life.” Gerlach was charged with more than 550 criminal counts, including abuse of a corpse, multiple counts of burglary, theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, and desecration of public monuments and historic burial places. He is currently being held on $1 million bail and is scheduled to appear in court later this month.
Profiting from others’ pain
A particularly troubling aspect of the case is the indication that Gerlach may have attempted to market or sell human remains via social media. Court records show he posted photos of bones and skulls on his Instagram account, and authorities are investigating whether any remains were unlawfully sold or exchanged online. Gerlach was also reportedly a member of a “Human Bones and Skull selling group” on Facebook.
Search warrant documentation regarding his Instagram account said that the “533 accounts and pages Gerlach is following revealed an abundance of accounts referencing skeleton collections, corpses, taxidermy, ‘human skull store,’ oddities, and bone museums.”
Gerlach’s own Facebook page includes a few poses with human skulls, while his posts to an “Antiques and Oddities Swap” page include “art” created from the skeletal remains of cats, each of which he was selling for $220 last summer.
Next steps
Police in surrounding areas are investigating a potential connection between the Mount Moriah cemetery thefts and similar break-ins in their jurisdictions, including the November theft of two sets of remains from a long-neglected mausoleum in Plains Township, Pennsylvania.
Authorities will be tasked with trying to identify each set of remains and return them to their proper resting places. However, the age of burials and available records, plus the fact that Mount Moriah is recognized as the “country’s largest abandoned burial ground,” with more than 150,000 graves spread across 160 acres, will add to the challenges.
