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It still happens every once in a while but not as often as it did in the 1800s. They would steal bodies from the graves and sell them to medical schools for dissection. Some counterfeiters tried to steal Lincoln's body so they could ransom it and get their chief engraver out of prison. Mostly it was the poor people in potter's field that got snatched. Whenever I read about these cases I always picture Vincent Price and Peter Lorre creeping around a cemetery late at night with shovels.
Didn't Nostradamus supposedly predict the exact date when his tomb would be robbed ?
I think someone attempted to rob the graves of the band members from Lynyrd Skynyrd a while back. More recently, some guy was caught digging up his father's grave because he thought he could bring him back to life.
This American Life just broadcast the story of the whack job that dug up a body and lived with it as its husband for years. Google Carl von Cosel if you don't want to listen to the whole thing.
Then there is the grave in Laurel Hill cemetery in Philadelphia where a guard was once posted to keep people from digging up the body of a wealthy widow who died without obvious heirs when it was rumored she was buried with her will. They exhumed her but didn't find the will, so she has remained peacefully underground since. The estate took over twenty years to settle - there were over 25000 claims - and eventually was split between three distant relatives who had since died.
Didn't Nostradamus supposedly predict the exact date when his tomb would be robbed ?
Publicly predicting which day your tomb will be robbed essentially amounts to daring somebody to rob your grave on that particular date. Obviously the challenge was accepted.
Publicly predicting which day your tomb will be robbed essentially amounts to daring somebody to rob your grave on that particular date. Obviously the challenge was accepted.
He predicted the grave robber would be killed by a stray bullet, and he was. I guess the grave robber didn't read that prediction.
This American Life just broadcast the story of the whack job that dug up a body and lived with it as its husband for years. Google Carl von Cosel if you don't want to listen to the whole thing.
Then there is the grave in Laurel Hill cemetery in Philadelphia where a guard was once posted to keep people from digging up the body of a wealthy widow who died without obvious heirs when it was rumored she was buried with her will. They exhumed her but didn't find the will, so she has remained peacefully underground since. The estate took over twenty years to settle - there were over 25000 claims - and eventually was split between three distant relatives who had since died.
He predicted the grave robber would be killed by a stray bullet, and he was. I guess the grave robber didn't read that prediction.
After a bit of research, it seems as though the whole thing is an urban legend brought around from twisting his words. It's possible to "predict" many things from the man's vague rambling.
After a bit of research, it seems as though the whole thing is an urban legend brought around from twisting his words. It's possible to "predict" many things from the man's vague rambling.
I saw a documentary about him once and they showed excerpts from what he had written, there were 6 different interpretations on the one page alone. I lost interest quick and turned the channel.
More recently....in 1978, Charley Chaplin's body was stolen from the Lake Geneva cemetery and held for ransom, the theives demanding $600,000 to return the corpse to its rest. The Swiss police tapped all 200 pay phones nearest to the Chaplin residence and it paid off, two mechanics and political refugees from Eastern Europe, Roman Wardas and Gantscho Ganev, were finally nabbed and forced to reveal where they had stashed the body (buried in a cornfield.) Chaplin's corpse was returned to his original grave, and a layer of concrete was added to discourage future body snatchers.
Wardas, as the "mastermind" of the inept ghouls, got four years in prison. Ganev got off with a suspended sentence.
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