Christopher Myers

When you really think about it, Weekend at Bernie’s was pretty macabre. That corpse had to smell pretty rank by the end of the film. Richard and Larry aren’t the first people to haul around a dead body, though. Here are some examples of famous grave robbers, real-life people who dug up the deceased. Some grave robbers did it for the money, some did it for the notoriety, and some, like Ed Gein, some did it for medical school, and some did it for fun. A few of them even got away with it, although you have to wonder if it was worth the trouble.

These grave robbers really chose a tough profession, although it’s one that dates back for centuries. Digging in itself is back breaking, and the highly questionable act is best completed in the dead of night. The smell is enough to turn stomachs. You have no guarantee of making much money off the job. Then there is the fact that exhuming corpses is frowned upon – if not considered a crime – in most circles. People caught grave robbing generally are not treated too kindly.

Instead of going through all that trouble, perhaps it would be better just to read these stories. At least it would be more sanitary.

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• Charlie Chaplin’s Body Was Ransomed

Photo: Philoum/SilkTork / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA 3.0

On March 2, 1978, two months after the movie star’s death, Charlie Chaplin’s body was dug up from its resting place in Switzerland. Charlie’s widow received a ransom note asking for $600,000. She refused to pay it, saying that Charlie would have thought it “ridiculous.”

Roman Wardas, of Poland, and Gantscho Ganev, of Bulgaria, were eventually arrested for grave robbing and attempted extortion. They showed police to Chaplin’s body, which they had buried in a nearby cornfield. After the affair, the Chaplin’s body was reburied in a concrete grave for safekeeping.

• Ed Gein Robbed Graves For Fun

Photo: Bryanwake / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Ed Gein was a farmer with some unusual tastes. Actually, his taste in home decor (as well as murder) inspired the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

He’s also referenced in the characters of Norman Bates in Psycho, and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs.

Gein liked to rob graves and then experiment in human taxidermy, as well as necrophilia. He eventually turned to murder, killing at least two women in 1952. Gein was arrested and confined to various psychiatric institutions until his death in 1984.

• Honest Abe Almost Got Exhumed

Photo: Robert Lawton / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.5

The plan looked good on paper. In 1876, Abraham Lincoln’s body was kept above ground within a sarcophagus in Springfield, Illinois’ Oak Ridge Cemetery, with only a single padlock protecting it. The gang of Chicago Irish counterfeiters led by Big Jim Kennally had simple demands: $200,000 in ransom and a full pardon for their member Benjamin Boyd, who was doing 10 years at the time. The only problem was that the “expert grave robber” they hired for help in the caper turned out to be an undercover secret service agent. You win some, you lose some.

• Burke And Hare Increased The Body Count

Photo: Wikimedia Commons / Wikimedia Commons

In 1820s England, there was a cadaver shortage. Medical schools started paying top dollar (well, pound) for fresh bodies in good condition.

Looking to capitalize on this, William Burke and William Hare began robbing graves in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1827. Wanting to increase their revenue, they took to murdering people and selling their fresh corpses. That’s one way to get ahead in life.

• The Freedom Undertaker Steals Famous Teeth

As absurd as it sounds, this is not a Mad Lib. Calling himself the Freedom Undertaker, Ondrej Jajcaj has robbed the graves of several famous composers in order to procure their teeth. He wants to use said teeth in order to start his own museum. In YouTube videos, the grave robber boasts about his collection, which apparently includes the teeth of Johann Strauss Jr.

• The Bhakkar Brothers Couldn’t Stop Their Cravings

In 2011, Pakistani brothers Mohammad Arif and Farman Ali were jailed for digging up graves, stealing as many as 150 bodies, and eating the flesh. When police raided their house again in 2014, they were still eating people. Interestingly, cannibalism isn’t strictly illegal in Pakistan, so the police had to bring them in under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) section of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

• Thomas Paine’s Postmortem Trip

Photo: Ɱ / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA 4.0

In 1819, William Cobbett decided that a barren field was no place for the author of Common Sense to be buried. So, like any concerned citizen, he decided to dig up the body of Thomas Paine and give it a proper burial in England. Unfortunately, Cobbett ran out of money and Paine’s bones remained in storage until Cobbett’s death. After that, no one really knows what happened to Paine’s remains. So much for a proper burial.

• Alexander T. Stewart’s Body Went For $20,000

Photo: DanTD / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA 3.0

At the time of his death in 1876, retail giant Alexander T. Stewart was worth $50 million, making him the third richest man in America. A clever and entrepreneurial grave robber known as Henry G. Romaine managed to exhume the corpse and escape with it. He then asked for $250,000 in ransom for the return of the body.

After several years of failed police attempts to find the body, Stewart’s widow negotiated the ransom down to $20,000. The ransom was paid, the bones were returned, and police never apprehended Romaine.

• Anatoly Moskvin Created Dolls

In 2011, Anatoly Moskvin was found playing with dolls. The macabre part is that he made the dolls himself…out of the exhumed remains of little girls. This prolific grave robber dug up over 100 graves, and researched the bodies of the girls extensively before bringing them home. In total, he was found with 29 mummified girls at the time of his arrest.

After spending years in a psychiatric ward, a judge determined that he was unfit to stand trial.

• John Scott Harrison Was ‘Donated’ To Science

As the son of President William Henry Harrison and father of President Benjamin Harrison, John Scott Harrison probably expected a dignified eternal rest. When a nearby grave was discovered exhumed at his funeral, special precautions were even taken to place his body in a secret grave. John’s oldest son John Harrison, Jr. set out to find the exhumed body and solve the mystery of its identity. After receiving a tip he went to Ohio Medical School in Cincinnati and found… his father’s body.

• Not Quite Nosferatu

Photo: A.Savin / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA 3.0

In 2015, the skull of F.W. Murnau (director of the 1922 horror masterpiece Nosferatu) was stolen from its 83-year resting place. Wax drippings found at the scene indicated that it was probably an occult ritual. For years the crypt would occasionally be broken into, but this was the first time anything was stolen.

• Enrico Cuccia’s Body Was Snatched

The father of modern Italian capitalism, Enrico Cuccia, wasn’t able to stay long in his “eternal” resting place. Less than a year after his death in 2000, the heavy marble stone covering his tomb was found cracked by a maid who tended the grave. The body was missing.

Soon after, the family received a ransom demanding $3.5 million in return for the body. When the ransom was not immediately paid, the grave robber called. Police traced the call, arrested the culprit, and returned the body intact.

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