Grandson Demands Answers in Burglary at Pennsylvania Mausoleum

Vince Cappellini got a call Monday that still haunts him days later.

The 62-year-old attorney picked up the phone at his office in Pennsylvania and received “rather disturbing” news from the Luzerne County Coroner’s Office: the remains of his grandmother, Mary Cappellini Piga, had been stolen from Good Shepherd Memorial Mausoleum in Plains Township.

“And he said, ‘In all my years in law enforcement and as coroner, I just can’t put my finger on this, what the hell happened,’” Cappellini told Newsweek during an interview Friday. “He basically said that between the previous Thursday and Sunday, someone had broken into the mausoleum and my Nonna’s crypt.”

The creepy culprit — or culprits — broke through marble to reach Piga’s casket inside the crypt, her shocked grandson said.

“They actually opened up the coffin to get the bones,” Cappellini said.

Authorities later recovered a small portion of Piga’s remains, Cappellini said. A second body was also removed from the abandoned and condemned site, Plains Township Police Department announced in a Facebook post on Monday.

The remains of the unrelated male decedent had been recovered, according to Cappellini, who wants the same fate restored for his 81-year-old grandmother decades after she passed away in July 1979.

“I haven’t heard any more,” said Cappellini, of Pittston. “The last I heard was they’d be in touch — there was an ongoing investigation with the Pennsylvania State Police and Plains Township police.”

Investigators intended to utilize DNA testing in the active probe, Cappellini said.

Plains Township police believe the horrifying heist at the mausoleum on Westminster Road occurred sometime between November 1 and November 6.

“During the burglary, the remains of two people were removed from their crypts,” police said in a statement while urging anyone with information to contact investigators. “All information received will be kept confidential.”

Messages seeking additional comment from Plains Township and state police were not immediately returned Friday.

Luzerne County Coroner Dion Fernandes declined to comment early Friday on the identities of the stolen remains.

“I will confirm that there were two people removed from crypts at the cemetery,” Fernandes told Newsweek in a statement. “The investigation is ongoing.”

Cappellini said he was still processing the surge of emotions connected to the macabre incident.

“Shock, surreal, you know, and then eventually settling into disturbed and sick,” he said.

Relatives had previously considered removing Piga’s body from the cemetery, which was reportedly condemned by Plains Township in 2015, according to WBRE.

“For years, they’ve been trying to contact the owners,” Cappellini said. “There was an issue there trying to locate them or get a proper response. We had been talking about getting the body out of there and then this happened.”

The site was purchased at a tax sale in 2005, but the owner, who now lives in Florida, has insisted she was unaware it contained a cemetery and mausoleum, WBRE reported in July.

“We did not purchase the business part of it,” Viktoria Evstafieva told the station in 2006. “We did not intend to continue this place as a cemetery.”

Meanwhile, Cappellini said he most recently visited his grandmother’s final resting place last year. She was born in Perugia, Italy, on January 31, 1898, he said.

“And it’s ironic because two years ago, I visited the town where she came from,” he recalled. “A kind, loving woman who loved her family, who loved to cook Sunday meals and make sure everyone was together. She loved her children and grandchildren immensely.”

Piga raised two sons, Domenic and Vincent, Cappellini’s father. A third boy died at or near birth, her grandson said.

Cappellini now intends to “stay proactive” throughout the ongoing investigation while calling for a quick resolution.

“I’m just hoping and praying along with the entire family that justice is served here,” Cappellini told Newsweek. “I hope this perpetrator — or preparators — is caught and prosecuted. It’s a sickening disturbance that I can’t even describe.”

Cappellini urged those responsible for stealing his grandmother’s remains to surrender.

“If you’re reading this, come forward, cooperate with the authorities and get help,” he said. “Knowing that you’re Nonna’s remains are out there somewhere is just, you know, I can’t describe it.”