Lancaster County man accused of being in possession of over 100 dead bodies, DA says
By Baylee Martin, Taylor Hess
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Lancaster County (WGAL) — Police discovered over 100 human remains in a Lancaster County home, allegedly stolen from a historic Pennsylvania cemetery, leading to the arrest of Jonathan Gerlach.
Yeadon Police Chief Henry Giammarco said, “After 30 years now, I can say this is probably the most horrific thing that I’ve seen.”
Gruesome discovery The remains, including full skeletons, skulls, bones, and decaying torsos, were found in the basement of the home at 100 Washington Avenue in Ephrata, Lancaster County.
On January 6th, police in Delaware County arrested Ephrata resident Jonathan Gerlach at Mount Moriah Cemetery near Philadelphia, where he was found with a burlap bag containing two mummified remains of small children, three skulls, and other bones.
Court documents say Gerlach admitted to using a crowbar to remove those remains from several underground vaults.
Police also found more bones in his Toyota Rav 4 that was parked near Mount Moriah Cemetery that evening.
Search warrant A search warrant conducted by Ephrata police and the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office at Gerlach’s home in Ephrata uncovered over 100 full or partial sets of human remains. Police also found eight more bodies in Gerlach’s storage locker nearby.
“There were so many that they were in various states,” said Tanner Rouse, Delaware County District Attorney. “Some of them were hanging, as it were. Some of them were pieced together, some were just skulls on a shelf.”
“I cannot imagine what it would put them through to know that someone like this guy had dug up those remains and was doing God knows what with them,” Rouse added. “It is truly in the most literal sense of the word, horrific.”
Mount Moriah Cemetery Mount Moriah Cemetery had been reporting burglaries since the beginning of November 2025.
Police reported that Gerlach’s phone was pinged at the cemetery six times from Halloween night of 2025 to Christmas Eve.
The cemetery, which has gravesites dating back to 1855, was the source of 25 of the bodies found in Gerlach’s possession, some over 100 years old, while others were more recent, including one body that still had a pacemaker attached.
“The arrest is the work of a joint investigation involving detectives from the DA’s Criminal Investigative Division, the Yeadon Police Department, and the Ephrata Police Department,” a statement from the DA said.
Charged Gerlach was charged with the following:
Burglary Abuse of corpse and desecration Theft or sale of venerated objects
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