OAN Staff Cory Hawkins
6:23 PM – Friday, January 9, 2026
A 34-year-old man in Pennsylvania was arrested on Tuesday after being accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons, including those of children, from cemeteries in Delaware County and Philadelphia, with possible involvement in Luzerne County.
Jonathan Gerlach, 34, is charged with 26 counts of burglary, 26 counts of criminal trespass, 100 counts of abuse of corpse, 100 counts of receiving stolen property, and 26 counts of intentional desecration of public monuments.
“Detectives walked into a horror movie come to life… This is an unbelievable scene that no one involved, from myself, to the detectives to the medical examiners that are now trying to piece together what they are looking at — quite literally — none of them have ever seen anything like this before,” District Attorney Tanner Rouse said Thursday.
“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, and it’s going to be quite some time before we have a final answer,” Rouse added
Delaware County police arrested Gerlach at Mount Moriah Cemetery after discovering him with a burlap bag containing the remains of two small children, three skulls, and various other bones.
A subsequent search of his Toyota RAV4, parked nearby, revealed additional remains. Following the arrest, Ephrata police executed a search warrant at Gerlach’s residence, uncovering a “horrific” collection of over 100 full or partial human remains. Eight additional sets were later recovered from a nearby storage unit as well.
“There were so many that they were in various states,” said Rouse “Some of them were hanging, as it were. Some of them were pieced together, some were just skulls on a shelf.”
“I cannot imagine what it would put them through to know that someone like this guy had dug up those remains and was doing God knows what with them. It is truly, in the most literal sense of the word, horrific.”
Since early November 2025, Mount Moriah Cemetery has been plagued by a series of burglaries.
Investigations later revealed that Gerlach’s phone pinged at the cemetery six times between Halloween and Christmas Eve. During a surveillance operation at approximately 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Delaware County authorities spotted Gerlach’s vehicle.
According to the District Attorney’s Office, numerous skulls and bones were visible in the back seat, and investigators ultimately determined that 25 of the bodies in Gerlach’s possession originated from Mount Moriah.
These remains reportedly spanned centuries, ranging from historical specimens to more recent interments, including one body that still had a pacemaker attached.
Investigators say Gerlach sold some of the stolen remains online, as detailed in court documents that describe his activity in a “Human Bones and Skull Selling” Facebook group, including a post where a buyer thanked him for mailing items such as “a possible teen” skull.
Reports also highlight a Facebook photo of Gerlach posing on a motorcycle with what appears to be a human skull, referenced as evidence of his involvement in collecting and potentially selling such items.
“Gerlach was then seen exiting the cemetery holding a burlap bag, crowbar and other assorted items. The offender was brought into custody where he admitted to stealing approximately 30 sets of human remains,” a District Attorney added.
The motive behind the disturbing collection remains a mystery, as investigators have yet to determine why Gerlach amassed such a vast volume of human remains. His bail has been set at $1 million, and he is scheduled to appear for an arraignment hearing on January 20th.
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