grave robbing news stories on Newser

Historian Lived With 26 Female Corpses

Rob Quinn — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 02:20:24 CDT

Somewhere along the way, Russian historian Anatoly Moskvin's interest in cemeteries went from academic to twisted. Police probing grave desecrations found the corpses of 26 women in the 45-year-old researcher's apartment, the Telegraph reports. The skeletal remains had been dressed up in new clothes. Moskvin was in the process of...

Thieves Demand Ransom for Cyprus President's Corpse

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:00:00 CST

The mystery behind the bodysnatching of Cyprus' former president seems to have been solved: The island nation's justice minister today ruled out a political motive, revealing that a ransom demand had been made. He said Tassos Papadopoulos' family had received a demand for ransom for the return of the body,...

Grave Robbers Steal Body of Cyprus Leader

John Johnson — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:05:53 CST

Bizarre crime of the day: Grave robbers have stolen the corpse of the former president of Cyprus, Tassos Papadopoulos. A member of the president's guard found the open grave and empty coffin this morning. The body snatching came one day before a public memorial service on the one-year anniversary of...

Sleep With Marilyn: Wife Selling Hubby's Crypt Above Monroe

Mary Papenfuss — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 02:04:31 CDT

A former Beverly Hills resident is about to get a rude awakening when he's evicted from his crypt above Marilyn Monroe so his wife can sell it, reports the Los Angeles Times . Elsie Poncher says her hubby was a "helluva nice guy," but she needs the money to help pay...

Activists Torch Drug CEO's Home, Steal Mom's Ashes

Rob Quinn — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 02:58:42 CDT

Animal rights militants have torched the home of the CEO of drug giant Novartis and stolen his mother's ashes from a Swiss cemetery, say company officials. Employees' cars have also been vandalized and attacked with crude explosive devices, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Babies' Graves Vanish From Ill. Cemetery

Rob Quinn — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 05:50:19 CDT

Police declared the whole of Burr Oak cemetery in the Chicago suburbs to be a crime scene last night, after hundreds of families reported empty or missing graves, including an entire section of the cemetery called Babyland, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Relatives will be barred from the site for about...

Emmett Till's Casket Found 'Rusted, Battered'

Matt Cantor — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:57:19 CDT

As Chicagoans mourned the desecration of a historic cemetery, the casket of civil rights icon Emmett Till was found rusted in a shack amid garbage and gravestones, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. “When we opened it up trying to find what we have, a family of possums ran out,” said the...

Cemetery Workers Dug Up Bodies, Resold Graves

Nick McMaster — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:46:54 CDT

Four employees of a historic Chicago-area cemetery face charges after police uncovered a gruesome scheme to excavate graves, remove the human remains, and resell the plots, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. One manager and three grave diggers at Burr Oak Cemetery are charged with dismembering a human body, which carries of...

Chinese Killer Supplied Corpse Brides

Dustin Lushing — Fri, 18 May 2007 21:13:00 CDT

Chinese authorities have arrested a man said to have killed six women in order to sell their bodies to families seeking "ghost brides" to marry their deceased sons. He and three other corpse traders are reputed to be members of an underground supply network prompted by a growing demand for...