Overview
- Police say at least 26 mausoleums and vaults at Mount Moriah Cemetery were forced open since early November during a months-long investigation.
- Officers arrested Jonathan Christ Gerlach, 34, on Jan. 6 after seeing bones in his car and finding a crowbar and a burlap bag holding mummified remains of two young children, three skulls, and other bones.
- Searches of his Ephrata home and a storage unit recovered more than 100 remains, including skulls, long bones, mummified hands and feet, two decomposing torsos, and grave goods such as jewelry.
- Authorities reported remains spanning centuries in age, including one body with a pacemaker, as forensic teams work to inventory and identify the victims and notify potential relatives.
- Gerlach faces roughly 100 counts of abuse of a corpse and about 100 counts of receiving stolen property, along with multiple profanation and theft charges, and investigators are examining possible ties to other cemeteries and an online bone-selling group.