Judge pauses hearing for man accused of stealing 100 corpses, remains from historic cemetery

MEDIA, Pa. (CN) — Dead men will have to wait a few more weeks to tell their tales after a Pennsylvania magisterial judge postponed the Friday hearing of accused grave robber Jonathan Christian Gerlach, setting the stage for a lurid legal battle in early April.

Magisterial District Judge W. Keith Williams II granted the request by Gerlach’s counsel for the continuance, citing additional information discovered Thursday.

Yeadon police arrested Gerlach, 34, of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, on Jan. 6 after officers say they caught him in the act of robbing a burial monument in Mount Moriah Cemetery, a historic burial ground straddling Yeadon and southwest Philadelphia.

According to police, Gerlach was found holding a burlap sack containing the mummified remains of two small children, three skulls and other bones. Gerlach admitted to stealing over 30 sets of human remains from Mount Moriah and explained how he accessed the burial sites, officers said.

Police executed a search warrant at Gerlach’s home and a nearby storage unit the following day, uncovering what Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse could only describe as “a horror movie come to life.”

Officers discovered more than 100 human skulls, bones and mummified hands and feet scattered across Gerlach’s home — some from deceased children, some from adults — with eight additional remains found in the storage unit, investigators said.

“Some of them were hanging, as it were,” Rouse said during a news conference following Gerlach’s arrest. “Some were pieced together. Some were just skulls on the shelf.”

Burial dates for the remains varied greatly; according to officers, some are at least 200 years old, while at least one body was found with a pacemaker still attached.

Due to the age of many of the burial records, investigators anticipate a lengthy process of identifying remains and notifying living family members.

“If it was the 1800s, we have to go through the records, and the records were done in a book, and we have to figure that out,” said Yeadon Borough Police Chief Henry Giammarco in a January news conference.

Gerlach faces more than 500 charges, including 100 counts of abuse of a corpse, 100 counts of theft, 26 counts of burglary and 26 counts of intentional desecration of a public monument.

Police first began investigating the grave desecrations in November 2025, after nonprofit preservation group Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery reported a burglary at the burial ground.

Then in December, Yeadon police received a tip claiming Gerlach had a partially decomposed corpse hanging in his basement and had traveled to Chicago to sell a human skull. Officers also found now-deleted Facebook and Instagram accounts connected to Gerlach that appeared to be involved in the sale of human bones.

Using vehicle and phone records, officers said, police tied Gerlach to the growing number of burglarized mausoleums and underground vaults at Mount Moriah, leading to Gerlach’s caught-in-the-act arrest in January.

Additionally, police said they discovered a Monster Energy drink can at one of the break-in sites, which they collected for DNA and fingerprint analysis.

According to court documents, investigators have also connected Gerlach to a separate burglary in Plains Township, Pennsylvania, where police found human remains wrapped in plastic near a damaged mausoleum. Again, police discovered energy drink cans at the site, as well as cigarette butts; both were recovered for testing.

Gerlach only targeted mausoleums and family vaults, leaving buried coffins untouched, Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery said.

“No dirt was disturbed,” the organization wrote in a social media statement.

Established in 1855, Mount Moriah Cemetery contains the remains of veterans from the French and Indian War, Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and American Civil War. Betsy Ross’ remains were also interred at Mount Moriah between 1856 and 1976, although they have since been moved to the Betsy Ross House in Old City, Philadelphia, following a family petition.

Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery president John R. Schmehl Jr. announced efforts to bolster security of the cemetery following Gerlach’s arrest, including expediting already-planned security camera installations and initiating random patrols of the grounds.

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