- A serial grave robber had built a horrifying collection of human remains in his home.
Cops in Pennsylvania recently ended one grotesque crime streak. We’re talking about nothing less than serial grave robbing.
In early January, the police arrested Jonathan Gerlach. The 34-year-old is suspected of being the infamous Mount Moriah grave robber who has plagued a historical Philadelphia graveyard for months.
The cops made a breakthrough in the case when they were able to connect Gerlach to a car frequently seen around the cemetery. In the car, plainly visible through the windows, the cops found piles of skulls and bones.
In Gerlach’s home, the cops found the remnants of dozens upon dozens of human bodies. His gruesome collection reportedly included more skeletal remains and even whole, only partially decomposed torsos.
According to media reports, Gerlach has confessed to the crimes. He has allegedly been selling the body parts online to collectors of the macabre.
Gerlach has reportedly been charged with more than 500 violations. The case is eerily similar to the nationwide corpse trafficking ring busted in 2023.
Opened Graves
Today’s Mount Moriah Cemetery is part of a historical graveyard on the outskirts of Philadelphia. Established in 1855, it originally covered 54 acres of land, but now sprawls over roughly 200 acres.
Due to its age and massive size, parts of Mount Moriah lie virtually abandoned. The area is littered with old, crumbling gravestones, tombs, and mausoleums.
A couple of months ago, the old graves started opening.
This wasn’t The Night of the Living Dead, though. In November 2025, somebody started breaking into the tombs and stealing the body parts inside.
According to Associated Press, at least 26 graves at Mount Moriah have been desecrated since last November. The frequency of the incidents led the Friends of Mount Moriah and police alike to conclude that a serial grave robber was on the loose.
Anonymous Tip-off
The police opened an investigation as soon as the crimes were reported. Lucky for them, the cops soon received an online tip that encouraged them to look into one Jonathan Gerlach.
The anonymous whistleblower reportedly knew somebody who had visited Gerlach in his home. There, the person had allegedly seen a “partially decomposed corpse” hanging from the basement ceiling.
In addition, the tipster claimed that Gerlach had mentioned visiting Chicago to sell off a human skull. Finally, the person alleged that Gerlach was following people into “skeleton collecting and sales” on social media, according to The Guardian.
The cops started looking into Gerlach and his online presence, and they soon started uncovering chilling things. They discovered a group dedicated to selling human bones, where someone thanked Gerlach for selling them a “human skin bag.” Additionally, on some platforms, Gerlach used a profile a person holding a human skull.
A Sack of Corpses
Yet, what ultimately connected Gerlach to the Mount Moriah grave robberies was his car. The police noticed that a license plate belonging to Gerlach’s Toyota Rav4 was popping up on plate readers around the cemetery.
What’s more, Gerlach’s cellphone location trail showed that he had been around Mount Moriah at the same time when robberies had reportedly taken place.
So, the cops staged a stakeout. Sure enough, on January 6, they spotted Gerlach’s car parked by the graveyard.
Soon, the man himself emerged from the cemetery, carrying a crowbar and a burlap. The officers hopped out of their car and stopped Gerlach.
As they talked to him, they noticed that the backseat of his car was covered in human skulls and bones. They weren’t even hidden, but sitting plainly visible through the car’s windows.
The contents of the burlap sack were equally gruesome. Inside the bag were allegedly the mummified corpses of two children.
With that, the police had had enough and arrested Gerlach. During his interrogation, he reportedly stated that he’d sold some human remains online, but that “the vast majority of them were in [his] basement.”
‘Horror Movie Come to Life’
The police visited Gerlach’s home the following day. Delaware County district attorney Tanner Rouse said the officers “walked into a horror movie scene come to life.”
In the basement, the police reportedly found more than 100 human skulls and many other bones. The collection also allegedly included mummified hands and feet. Yet, perhaps the most grotesque discovery was the two partially decomposed human torsos.
“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,” detailed Rouse.
Gerlach has, according to the police, been strangely compliant. He has allegedly confessed to his crimes, said he’d stolen “about 30 sets of human remains,” and even showed the cops which graves he’d desecrated.
Media reports state Gerlach has been charged with a whopping 575 crimes, including more than 100 cases of abuse of a corpse. Other charges include theft, burglary, desecration of venerated objects, trespassing, desecrating a historic site, and more.
And that’s for starters. As the investigation goes on, Gerlach may receive additional charges.
“Given the enormity of what we are looking at and the sheer, utter lack of reasonable explanation, it’s difficult to say right now, at this juncture, exactly what took place. We’re trying to figure it out,” said Rouse.
Gerlach has been jailed on a $1 million bond.
A Similar Case
This isn’t the first time in recent years that the police have busted a large-scale corpse trafficking ring. In 2023, they caught a nationwide club engaged in trading human remains.
At the heart of the case was a member of the group who had managed to get a job with the morgue at Harvard Medical School. Using his position, between 2018 and 2022, the man repeatedly stole body parts from the morgue’s corpses and sold them with his wife.
Overall, the trafficking ring sold an estimated $100,000 worth of human remains. If you’d like to know more about this terrible tale, you can read our article from the time.