{"id":82626,"date":"2026-01-09T18:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T18:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/82626\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T18:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T18:53:09","slug":"pennsylvania-man-allegedly-found-with-over-100-sets-of-human-remains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/82626\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania man allegedly found with over 100 sets of human remains"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!\n <\/p>\n

A Pennsylvania man<\/a> is facing hundreds of charges after “over 100 full or partial sets of human and skeletal remains” were allegedly found in his home and a storage unit in a scene a district attorney described as a “horror movie come to life.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jonathan Gerlach, 34, of Ephrata, Pa., was arrested this week by police who were investigating a string of burglarized graves and mausoleums at the Mount Moriah Cemetery on the outskirts of Philadelphia, according to the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“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 \u2014 quite literally \u2014 none of them have ever seen anything like this before,” District Attorney Tanner Rouse said Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“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\u2019s going to be quite some time before we have a final answer,” Rouse added, noting that some of the remains were months-old infants, while others were hundreds of years old.<\/p>\n

HUMAN SKULL, OTHER REMAINS FOUND IN BUSHES BY BROOKLYN’S CONEY ISLAND AS INVESTIGATORS WORK TO UNRAVEL MYSTERY<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Jonathan <\/p>\n

Jonathan Gerlach, 34, was arrested at the Mount Moriah Cemetery on the outskirts of Philadelphia, Pa., on Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2025. (Delaware County District Attorneys\u2019 Office via AP\/Google Maps)<\/p>\n

The Delaware County District Attorney’s Office said around 8 p.m. on Tuesday, police were conducting surveillance<\/a> of Mount Moriah Cemetery “when they\u00a0observed\u00a0the suspect\u2019s car with\u00a0numerous\u00a0bones and skulls in plain view in the back seat of the vehicle.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Gerlach was then seen exiting the cemetery holding a burlap bag,\u00a0crowbar\u00a0and other assorted items. The offender was brought into custody where he\u00a0admitted to\u00a0stealing approximately 30 sets of human\u00a0remains,” it continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Through investigation it\u00a0is believed that over 100 full or partial sets of human and skeletal remains have been recovered from Gerlach\u2019s home and storage unit in Ephrata. This investigation\u00a0remains\u00a0ongoing,” it added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

HUMAN REMAINS FOUND NEAR TAYLOR SWIFT’S MANSION IDENTIFIED<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Mount <\/p>\n

The Mount Moriah Cemetery on the border of Philadelphia. (Google Maps)<\/p>\n

Gerlach was charged<\/a> with more than 450 counts, including 100 counts each of abuse of corpse, theft by unlawful taking and receiving stolen property.<\/p>\n

His bail was set at $1 million, with an arraignment hearing scheduled for Jan. 20.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Mount <\/p>\n

The Delaware County District Attorney’s Office said Jonathan Gerlach was seen exiting Mount Moriah Cemetery this week “holding a burlap bag, crowbar and other assorted items.” (Google Maps)<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP<\/a><\/p>\n

“I grieve for those who are upset by this, who are going through this, who are trying to figure out if it is in fact one of their loved ones,” Rouse said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Greg Norman is a reporter at Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! A Pennsylvania man is facing hundreds of charges after “over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6813,2833,28,30,29,69,593],"class_list":["post-82626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-crime-world","tag-northeast","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-philadelphia","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}