MEDIA, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — The man accused of stealing more than 100 skeletal remains from area cemeteries will appear in court in Delaware County on Friday.
A preliminary hearing for 34-year-old Jonathan Gerlach is scheduled for 10 a.m. at the Delaware County Courthouse.
Gerlach was arrested in January near the historic Mount Moriah Cemetery, which is in both Delaware County and Southwest Philadelphia. Police said Gerlach had human skulls and bones in the back seat of his car.
In a search of his Ephrata, Lancaster County, home, investigators found more than 100 sets of human remains, plus eight more in a storage locker. Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse described it as a “horror movie come to life.”
Authorities said Gerlach got the bones by breaking into mausoleums and large gravesites at Mount Moriah as well as a cemetery in Luzerne County. He posted about collecting and selling skeletons on Instagram, investigators said.
Gerlach is facing a litany of charges, including burglary, abuse of a corpse, and theft.