Overview
- Jonathan Christ Gerlach, 34, is jailed on $1 million bail and faces hundreds of counts that include abuse of a corpse, receiving stolen property, profanation charges, theft, and trespass.
- Detectives arrested him on Jan. 6 after spotting bones and skulls in his car near Mount Moriah Cemetery as he exited with a crowbar and a burlap bag containing mummified remains, including two children and three skulls.
- Searches of his Ephrata home and a storage unit recovered more than 100 skulls, long bones, mummified hands and feet, and two decomposing torsos, along with jewelry linked to graves and a torso with a pacemaker.
- Police say at least 26 mausoleums and vaults were forced open since early November, and Gerlach told investigators he took about 30 sets of remains and identified specific graves.
- Forensic cataloging and identification are ongoing and expected to take weeks, and investigators are reviewing social media activity for possible sales and checking whether other cemeteries were targeted, with a preliminary hearing reported for Jan. 20.