Bones in the Backseat: The Ongoing Story of Jonathan Gerlach

What started as a quiet investigation into a vandalized mausoleum at Mount Moriah Cemetery quickly spiraled into something much darker.

In this episode, we explore the recent arrest of Jonathan Christian Gerlach — accused of stealing human remains from Philadelphia’s historic cemeteries — and the eerie digital trail he left behind. From curated Instagram posts to disturbing discoveries in his home, police uncovered a scene that felt more like a horror film than real life.

But this isn’t just about one man. It’s about a culture. A curiosity. And a line that gets crossed when fascination becomes exploitation.

With historical context, family legacies, and a respectful look at ethical collecting, Episode 99 unearths the names behind the tombs — and what happens when the dead are no longer left to rest.

Transcript

Before we begin this episode, I want to be clear about something — something personal.

I like weird things. I collect oddities. I’m part of online curiosity groups. I love vintage medical kits, anatomical charts, things with a story, things with soul. The unusual has always drawn me in. So what you’re about to hear isn’t a condemnation of collecting — or collectors.

This episode isn’t about judgment. It’s about boundaries. It's about consent, and respect, and what happens when those are ignored. It's about a story that crosses lines — not just legal ones, but moral ones too.

There is a world of difference between preserving history and plundering it. Between honoring the past and exploiting it.

Many of the people I know and admire in the collecting world are deeply respectful of where their items come from. They care about provenance. They care about ethics. They care about meaning. And this episode is not aimed at them.

It’s about someone who didn’t care. It’s about a group of people who just wanted to make money.

“This isn't the 1800s.

This isn’t a Victorian body snatching tale whispered under gaslight.

This happened in the last three years.

Across state lines.

Through the mail.

And it’s still unraveling.”

In December 2025, Jeremy Pauley, a 43-year-old man from Thompson, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to six years in federal prison for his role in an extraordinary — and horrifying — multi-state conspiracy.

His crime?

Buying, selling, and trafficking stolen human remains.

And not just from anywhere — but from Harvard Medical School, and a mortuary in Arkansas.

According to federal investigators, Pauley was part of a sprawling underground network that spanned at least five states. A network where body parts were bartered online, boxed up, and shipped across the country — sometimes for thousands of dollars.

“Pauley admitted to knowingly purchasing human remains that had been stolen from cadavers donated for medical research and education.”

But Pauley wasn't alone.

At the center of the ring: Cedric Lodge, the morgue manager for the Anatomical Gifts Program at Harvard Medical School.

From 2018 to 2022, Lodge systematically stole organs, bones, and entire body parts from cadavers entrusted to science. These bodies were donated by families who believed they were contributing to education. Instead, their loved ones were dissected — then sold.

“Lodge and his wife, Denise, would sometimes invite buyers into the morgue to handpick body parts from cadavers. Like a butcher shop. But with humans.”

One of those buyers was Joshua Taylor, another was Katrina Maclean. Both transported stolen remains, including back to Pennsylvania, where Pauley operated. At one point, Taylor was observed transporting parts of bodies in coolers, some of which were later sold through encrypted chats and social media accounts.

It wasn’t just Harvard.

Candace Chapman Scott, a crematory operator in Little Rock, Arkansas, was stealing remains she was supposed to cremate — including those of stillborn infants — and mailing them to Pauley, who would then resell them. Over $100,000 in digital payments exchanged hands between Pauley and Matthew Lampi, another trader in the network.

It should be known that Scott did not hold an active mortician's license. She was not authorized to harvest organs, tissues, or bones, or dismember a corpse, for any purpose, including personal financial gain. She just happened to work in a mortuary that experienced high traffic when it came to receiving bodies that had been used at the nearby medical school. Her job was to cremate whatever remained and return the cremains to the school. 

That’s when she met and contacted Jeremy Pauley via Facebook.  

"I follow your page and work and LOVE it. I'm a mortician and work at a trade service mortuary, so we are contracted through the medical hospital here in Little Rock to cremate their cadavers when the medical students are done with them before they discard them in a cremation garden. Just out of curiosity, would you know anyone in the market for a fully intact embalmed brain?" 

The next day she wrote to him again. 

"I actually just looked and I have 2 embalmed with skull caps." 

"Would $1200 shipped sound reasonable for all pieces including skull caps?" Pauley responded.

"You are literally on the same page because that was going to be my offer lol!" 

$1,200 was sent through PayPal from Pauley to Scott. From there she transferred the money into her bank account with Centennial Bank of Arkansas. And so began months of similar transactions between the two.

Stillborn babies. Harvard cadavers. Crematorium discards. These were the offerings in an American trafficking ring run from living rooms and phone apps.

According to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service:

“The trafficking of stolen human remains through the U.S. Mail is a disturbing act that victimizes already grieving families and creates a potential health risk for postal workers and customers alike.”

The sentences so far:

Cedric Lodge: 8 years / Denise Lodge: 1 year / Jeremy Pauley: 6 years / Candace Chapman Scott: 15 years / Matthew Lampi: 15 months / Angelo Pereyra: 18 months

Andrew Ensanian: 6 months

Others — like Maclean and Taylor — await sentencing

What’s more disturbing is this: Pauley was from Pennsylvania. His digital fingerprints — the forums he was active in, the language he used, the aesthetics of his “curiosity collection” — echo some of the same online environments tied to a man named Jonathan Gerlach, the grave robber whose story we’re about to tell. When we dig a little deeper we find out that during Pauley’s divorce from his estranged wife, the wife sold some of Pauley’s ill gotten property to Gerlach. The two became acquaintances. Gerlach considered the woman to be like a little sister.   

We’re looking at a spectrum of trade in human remains, from historic cemeteries like Mount Moriah to the dissecting tables of Ivy League labs.

Different sources.

Same outcome.

Bodies broken down and sold like collectibles.

“What does it say about a society when even the dead can be commodified?

When remains once meant for science, rest, or ritual are sold in dark corners of the internet — or worse, proudly displayed like trophies?”

We’ll keep following the money. And the bones.

Welcome to Year Six of the Curator135 Podcast. My name is Nathan Olli and this is Episode 99 - Bones in the Backseat: The Ongoing Story of Jonathan Gerlach.

Jonathan Christian Gerlach was arrested on the night of January 6th, 2026. It was cold, dark, and quiet inside Mount Moriah Cemetery — one of the oldest and most neglected burial grounds in Philadelphia. The cemetery sprawls over 200 acres of decaying mausoleums, broken stone, and family tombs dating back to the 1800s. At around 8 PM, police conducting surveillance on the site spotted a vehicle parked inside the gates. In the back seat of the car — in plain view — were skulls. Human bones, loosely wrapped and exposed. Then came the man himself. Gerlach emerged from the shadows carrying a burlap bag, a crowbar, and a handful of tools. He was dirty. Calm. Focused. He was caught red-handed.

When detectives stopped and questioned him, he admitted it almost casually: he’d stolen the remains of roughly thirty individuals. But a confession like that was just the beginning.

What happened next would stun even the most seasoned investigators.

Police obtained a search warrant that same night. They moved quickly to his home in 

Ephrata, Pennsylvania — a quiet suburban town more than an hour west of Philadelphia. And what they found inside, according to authorities, was a scene out of a horror film.More than one hundred full or partial sets of human remains were discovered throughout his house and in a nearby storage unit. Skulls were arranged on shelves. Bones were stacked like firewood. Some bodies were reportedly suspended from the ceiling. One of the cadavers still had a pacemaker attached.

The District Attorney described it simply: “Detectives walked into a horror movie come to life.”

Gerlach was charged with more than 500 counts — burglary, criminal trespass, theft, receiving stolen property, abuse of corpse, intentional desecration of venerated objects, and more. He was remanded to George W. Hill Correctional Facility on one million dollars cash bail. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for January 20th. But even before the charges, the digital evidence had already started telling its own story.

Jonathan Gerlach’s crimes weren’t confined to shadows and mausoleums. They were reflected — even flaunted — in the digital world. And the deeper investigators looked, the more disturbing the story became.

His Instagram handle, now infamous, was @deadshitdaddy.It’s still unclear how long the account had been active. But what is clear is the type of content it featured. Skull after skull. Bones carefully arranged on hardwood tables, in velvet-lined boxes, or against soft light filters. Some were real. Some may not have been. But in the context of what police found in his home, many now believe the remains in those photographs were stolen.

He captioned one post, “riding a Harley and slinging skulls.” Another showed him posing with what appears to be a human cranium in his lap, leather jacket on, sunglasses at night. The aesthetic was carefully curated — gothic, outlaw, collector, fringe. He used hashtags like #osteology, #humanremains, #curiocabinet. His comments section wasn’t just active — it was transactional.

On Facebook, Gerlach was a member of multiple private groups where human bones were openly traded. One such group had more than five thousand members and bore the name “Human Bones and Skull Selling Group.” In one publicly available thread, a buyer thanked him for shipping what they called “a possible teen, a baboon, and a monkey.”

Whether that exchange was real or ironic doesn’t really matter. The culture behind it was.

This wasn’t just a man fascinated by death. This was someone immersed in a world where bones were currency. Where ancient laws on anatomical collection collided with modern-day social platforms. Where the line between artifact and evidence was actively erased.

And Gerlach wasn’t just watching from the sidelines. He was participating.

His profiles painted a portrait of someone who believed he could operate in plain sight — and, until recently, he did.

This digital footprint became a major part of the investigation. Police used screenshots and archived posts to confirm identities, link artifacts to real remains, and establish timelines. In the post-modern crime scene, Instagram wasn’t just vanity — it was evidence.

To understand why Jonathan Gerlach chose Mount Moriah Cemetery, we need to understand what Mount Moriah has become.

Founded in 1855, Mount Moriah was once one of the grandest cemeteries in Pennsylvania. It stretched over 200 acres of rolling hills, towering mausoleums, and elaborate family crypts. It was a resting place for Civil War veterans, prominent families, and generations of Philadelphians.

But over time, the cemetery was forgotten. Ownership passed into legal ambiguity. Maintenance stopped. The weeds grew. The gates rusted. And entire sections of the cemetery vanished into the overgrowth.

It became a place where the living rarely went — and where the dead were slowly being erased by time, by nature, and eventually, by human hands.

That’s what drew Gerlach.

The cemetery's decay wasn’t just an eyesore to him — it was an opportunity. With no security, no regular patrols, and little oversight, Mount Moriah offered access to dozens of crumbling vaults. Mausoleums with weakened locks. Graves that hadn’t been visited in decades. Entire sections of the cemetery where no one was watching.

But someone was.

In 2011, a group of volunteers formed a nonprofit called The Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery. Their mission was simple but massive: to preserve the grounds, honor the history, and protect the dead.

They organized clean-ups. They mapped forgotten sections. They researched buried families and repaired headstones. But more than that, they kept watch.

In late 2025, volunteers began to notice something disturbing: broken tombs, opened mausoleums, evidence that someone had been inside places no one should be.

They reported it.

That vigilance became the first thread in what would unravel into the Gerlach case. Without the Friends of Mount Moriah, without their work and presence on the grounds, it’s likely no one would have discovered the desecrations for months, maybe even years. Their efforts not only protected the past — they protected the truth.

In many ways, Mount Moriah is a character in this story. A symbol of how we treat the forgotten. A place where history bleeds into neglect. And where, sometimes, evil finds cover in the cracks.

It’s easy to talk about “desecration” in abstract terms. To use phrases like “over one hundred remains” or “a century-old tomb.” But every broken seal, every scattered bone, belonged to someone. A person with a name. A story. A legacy.

And some of those legacies are still traceable — not just in records, but in stone. In story. In love.

We may never know exactly which remains were taken. The investigation is ongoing. But we do know this: specific mausoleums were violated. Their gates broken. Their seals shattered. Their peace disrupted.

Take the Prichard family. Jonathan Prichard wasn’t born into wealth, but he earned it. He built a life, a business, a mausoleum. It wasn’t just a resting place — it was a promise to his family, to their memory. Nine crypts. A vestibule design, allowing loved ones to enter, pray, reflect. His daughters, his wife, his children — all protected within its walls. He even helped build a church for his son-in-law, a Lutheran pastor. Today, that mausoleum sits among the broken. Believed to be affected. Whether or not ...

Then there’s John Henry McCullough — once one of the most celebrated actors in America. A man who stood on stage with John Wilkes Booth, who memorized Shakespeare by candlelight, who played Othello and Virginius to sold-out theaters. He collapsed mid-performance, misdiagnosed, later declared insane. He died in quiet grief, but his peers raised the tallest monument ever built to an actor at the time — 36 feet of carved stone. A symbol of artistry and fame. Now vandalized. The bronze bust once mounted ther...

John Q.A. Ziegler served his country through the Civil War and decades beyond. As Chief Engineer in the U.S. Navy, he led raids, manned ironclads, and served with quiet honor. When he died of tuberculosis — the same disease that took his wife — his daughter buried him beneath an angel. A family vault surrounded by inscriptions and love. Today, that angel stands chipped. The grave marred. The border walls once meant for protection, unable to stop what came.

And then there's the Baker family.

Nineteen individuals interred. The patriarch, Daniel Clifton Baker, likely moved there after the mausoleum was built. He was a river pilot — a man who navigated ships through treacherous shoals. So beloved that one of those shoals still bears his name. His descendants were veterans, social workers, builders of family. The mausoleum itself was unlike any other — with a rooftop stairwell, a view overlooking the Soldiers’ Plot. It was built to last. Until it didn’t.

We cannot say if their bones were taken. But we can say this: their tombs were entered. Their sacred spaces were no longer safe.

Someone decided to treat these names — Prichard, McCullough, Ziegler, Baker — not as people, but as opportunities. And in doing so, they desecrated more than stone.

We walk through Mount Moriah now with different eyes. Every crack in the stone is a wound. Every rusted gate a warning.

These were not anonymous tombs. These were loved ones.

And now, with your help, their names are among the living once again.

To fully understand Jonathan Gerlach — and others like him — we have to look beyond the bones. We have to examine the culture that allows this kind of obsession to grow, and in some cases, to thrive.

This is not just a story about one man digging through graves. It's about a modern subculture that blurs the lines between curiosity, collection, and crime.

Gerlach wasn’t hiding in plain sight because he was clever. He was hiding in plain sight because the culture around him allowed him to. Encouraged him to. In some corners of the internet, he was celebrated.

There are communities — entire marketplaces — where human remains are discussed, traded, bought, and sold. Sometimes under the guise of “medical specimens,” sometimes as “curiosities.” Skulls, femurs, even entire spines. The language is coded, the listings are vague, but the meaning is clear.

Collectors use words like “ethically sourced” or “legally obtained.” But in many cases, there is no clear law, no strict enforcement, and no way to verify where a bone came from once it’s stripped of its context. That’s how items from Harvard Medical School end up in living rooms. That’s how ancient remains are sold like decor.

People like Gerlach move through these spaces with ease. And they’re not alone.

There's an aesthetic, too — one that leans into the gothic, the macabre, the fetishized dark. It's not inherently criminal. But it can create the perfect camouflage for people who are crossing a line.

What begins as fascination can become obsession. What starts as collecting can become desecration.

The question is: where do we draw the line? When does ownership become exploitation? When does fascination become a felony?

Jonathan Gerlach didn’t see bones as sacred. He saw them as material. Something to be found, stolen, staged, and possibly sold. And for a while, no one stopped him.

This is what happens when reverence erodes, when laws fail to evolve, and when a culture celebrates what should be mourned.

Gerlach didn’t invent this world. He stepped into it. The world was ready. It had already shaped itself for someone like him.

What connects Jeremy Pauley and Jonathan Gerlach isn’t a shared criminal plan or direct communication. It’s something more unsettling — a pattern. A throughline. A cultural corridor where reverence for the dead has been replaced by a hunger for possession.

Pauley trafficked remains stolen from Harvard and Arkansas. Gerlach pulled bones from centuries-old tombs. One had access to donated cadavers. The other targeted forgotten 

crypts. Their methods were different, but their outcomes were strikingly similar: the transformation of human lives into things.

This is the spectrum of desecration.

At one end: institutions meant to protect the dignity of death — hospitals, mortuaries, cemeteries. On the other: basements, storage units, Instagram posts, and PayPal receipts.The stories we've covered in this episode expose a deeper discomfort. It’s not just that people are willing to steal bones. It’s that an entire infrastructure — digital, cultural, even legal — allows them to thrive until someone gets caught.

Platforms don’t moderate it. Law enforcement struggles to prioritize it. And many of us, when we hear about it, don’t know how to process it.

But here's what matters: every skull has a story. Every stolen bone belonged to someone. A person with a name. A body laid to rest with intent, ceremony, and care — until that rest was disturbed.This case isn’t over. Gerlach is still awaiting trial. The investigation continues. More charges could be filed. More remains may be identified. Families may still be found. 

But already, the questions linger.

How many others are doing this right now? How many cemeteries go unvisited, unprotected, and unguarded? How many “collectors” are actually traffickers hiding behind hashtags and pseudonyms?

If we don’t confront these questions, we risk something greater than criminal neglect. 

We risk forgetting the dead.

And when we forget the dead — we lose part of what makes us human.

So we’ll keep watching. We’ll keep asking questions. And we’ll keep telling these stories. Because bones may be silent. But they still speak.

Let me know what you think. I’ll have photos and news article clippings on the website soon, Curator135.com. The case is ongoing and I’ll be sure to keep you posted on any updates. For more information, please visit friendsofmountmoriahcemetery.org - You can also make donations there to help improve and secure the cemetery.

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