Yeadon Mayor Rohan Hepkins and State Sen. Anthony Williams were among the officials who met last week looking for ways to prevent future crime at Mount Moriah Cemetery in Yeadon and Philadelphia following the largest grave desecration in Pennsylvania history.
There are an estimated 180,000 buried within the cemetery’s 100 acres, writes Jillian Kramer for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Jonathan Christian Gerlach has been charged with more than 500 offenses, accused of breaking into burial vaults and mausoleums and removing human remains from at least 26 sites at the cemetery.
“We were too slow to move,” said Mayor Hepkins. “Nobody thought such a dastardly act — such an inhumane and incomprehensible act — was possible.”
Mount Moriah Cemetery is a historic landmark, but it was abandoned by its last owner and is under court receivership.
The volunteer nonprofit Friends of Mount Moriah and the court-appointed Mount Moriah Cemetery Preservation Corporation have a strategic plan to turn the cemetery into a viable public space, but investors aren’t there to make it happen.
The Friends of Mount Moriah has launched successful cleanup efforts. Now the group is fixing broken fences, launching random patrols, and installing cameras that will be monitored.
Read more about the obstacles preventing improved security at Mount Mariah Cemetery in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
