The man's lawyer paid for stolen items police believe he used in thefts of remains from a Philadelphia-area cemetery.
The Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office withdrew a retail theft charge against Gerlach on Wednesday at what was to be his preliminary hearing in the case after Gerlach paid for the items.Some of the items may have been used infrom mausoleums and crypts at Mount Moriah Cemetery and Arboretum in Delaware County, according to investigators.
Gerlach’s attorney, Adam Szilagyi, gave JB Zimmerman’s owner, Gerry Weaver, a cashier’s check to cover the value of gloves, headlamp, hammer drill bit and metal cutting wheel. Weaver said he was happy to get his money back. While he was unhappy that the theft charge had to be withdrawn,“He did steal from us, and he paid in full. The interesting thing was the comments he made to our cashiers,” Weaver, a retired part-time police officer, said outside New Holland District Court. “He made reference to: ‘I’m using these tools to bury bodies’ and laughed it off.” At least 30 sets of human remains were found inside Jonathan Gerlach's home on the 100 block of Washington Avenue in Ephrata, Lancaster County, authorities said. Items Gerlach paid for at the store included a 12-inch black tent stake. Such a stake was recovered on a monument in Mount Moriah, according to Delaware County investigators, who listed the items in their court filings related to the cemetery theft case.with 496 crimes, including multiple counts of burglary, abuse of corpse, desecration of monuments and desecration of burial places. Law enforcement began investigating remains thefts from Mount Moriah late last year. On Jan. 6, police arrested Gerlach as he was leaving the cemetery, which has not had a burial in more than a decade. Gerlach was carrying a burlap bag with two mummified remains of small children, three skulls and other assorted bones, according to police. Investigators then searched Gerlach’s Ephrata home and his nearby rental storage unit and said they recovered 100-plus bones. Gerlach’s preliminary hearing on the cemetery charges is scheduled for March 13 at the Delaware County Courthouse. Following Wednesday’s hearing, he was returned to Delaware County Prison, where he is being held on the cemetery theft charges in lieu of $1 million bail.
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