Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He Steals Body Parts - The Jonathan Gerlach Story

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

Jonathan Gerlach, a 34-year-old former metalcore vocalist from Ephrata, Pennsylvania, was arrested in January 2026 for a massive grave-robbing spree that officials described as a "horror movie come to life." Following a months-long investigation and an anonymous tip, police caught Gerlach leaving the historic Mount Moriah Cemetery with a burlap sack containing human remains.

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Now the guy's name is Jonathan and Jonathan's around 31 when the story starts and he's living in Pennsylvania. And Jonathan, he's in a band. Apparently he's in some heavy metal band and he spends a lot of his time writing music. But he has a problem. The dude is broke. Like he works at a warehouse and he has to work double shifts just to cover his bills. And after that, he barely has any money to, like, make music videos or travel around with his band or whatever. But one day, around 2023, he solves that problem.

Because that's when he meets this guy, JP. And JP allegedly shares with him a way to start his own business and be his own boss. See, JP is a strange guy. His whole thing is he likes to buy human body parts on the black market. like hearts and brains and bones and stuff, and then he'll resell them to people for a bunch of money. Apparently there are people willing to pay for that type of stuff. So once Jonathan learns about this, he gets inspired. Like he wants to get into this game as well.

But, unfortunately for him, this type of business requires startup capital. And Jonathan, he just doesn't have those kind of funds. So he comes up with a pretty insane plan. Instead of buying human remains and selling them, he's going to steal human remains and sell them. And so he gets to work on this plan. And he decides that the place he's going to steal human remains from is this really big historic cemetery not too far from where he lives. I guess the security at the cemetery just isn't all that great. So one night, he sneaks into the place.

And instead of getting a shovel and spending hours digging up people's graves hoping to find a few bones, Jonathan decides it'll be easier to target mostly the above-ground mausoleums. So with these mausoleums, there's no digging to do. You just have to pry stone and marble slabs out of place, and then boom, you got your bones and body parts. So he's at this cemetery, and he's got a crowbar, and he pries open a mausoleum or two, and he pries up some stone slabs,

and he collects all the bones and stuff he needs, and then he leaves. So his plan worked, but he realizes that if he's going to be serious about this, he's going to need some more tools. So he goes over to the local hardware store, and he shoplifts a bunch of tools, like a headlamp and some gloves and a metal cutting wheel and some other stuff. Then on another night, he goes back to the cemetery and he targets one of their underground vaults, and he steals a bunch more bones and human parts. And then another night he goes back again and he opens up a crypt and he has to repel 10 feet down into this crypt to access all the bodies and he steals everything he can and he leaves. And normally once he gets home, he stores all of these human remains in the basement of the house that he's renting. So now that he has all these bones and stuff, all he has to do is sell them. And here's the craziest part.

In the state of Pennsylvania, it's not actually illegal to buy or sell human remains. Maybe it's one of those things that lawmakers never addressed because who the fuck would want to buy or sell human remains. Anyway, so Jonathan is free to buy and sell these stolen bones and body parts. So he starts posting on social media, saying that he's a collector and a seller of human bones and remains and stuff, and he'll like post pictures of actual human skulls and shit on his Instagram. He also joins a Facebook group called Human Bones and Skull Selling Group. Here's an actual screenshot of the group, and the group is still there, by the way, because again, as I said,

this is not actually illegal in the state of Pennsylvania. And so Jonathan joins this group, and he starts selling bones and things to people online. And I guess people are buying them. Now, I couldn't find any information about how much the guy was making from all this, but I did find that a full human skeleton will retail on the black market for as much as $7,000. So, who knows how much he's making?

Anyway, so he continues on, and he makes this selling bones on the internet thing his whole personality. And he fills up his social media with pictures of skulls and pictures of him with skulls. It's almost like he's trying to be an influencer. Here's a picture that he posted of himself

on Instagram, and in the caption he says that he's now living alone in the mountains, riding a Harley, and slinging skulls. Although he's not actually living in the mountains, it's a weird thing to say. He's actually living in a rent house in a residential neighborhood. I think he's just trying to cultivate this online personality of this dark and mysterious badass. Influencers be lying sometimes, y'all. Regardless, Jonathan doesn't stop. His business seems to be doing well, and his social media numbers are trending upward. And so he keeps going back.

back to the graveyard looking for more and more bones to sell. And by now, he's breaking into family-owned mausoleums and stealing whole family's bones from their graves. He's also breaking into old-ass tombs. At one point, he takes the bones of a woman who died in 1869, more than 150 years ago. And because buying and selling this stuff is completely legal in his state, it seems like he can continue to do all this out in the open

and no one can do anything about it. Until. A few years pass, and it's now 2025. And Jonathan, he's still out there robbing graves. And by this point, he has the remains of more than a hundred people stored in the basement of his house and in a storage unit that he's renting. Now, around this time, one day, he's allegedly visited by two family members. And for whatever reason, Jonathan decides to show them all these human remains that he has in his basement.

And this, of course, freaks these family members out. Now, I assume that these guys are afraid of Jonathan or something, because neither of these two report what they saw to the police. However, they do talk about it with other people that they know. And one of those other people ends up contacting police and is like, oh, yeah, we heard Jonathan has a bunch of human bones and shit, in his basement. And so the police start investigating him. And of course, they look right at his social media and they see all the pictures of skulls and stuff that he posts there on his Instagram,

which suggests that, yeah, he might have a bunch of human remains in his basement. And so they track his phone records and his vehicle, and they can see that he went to the local cemetery on several occasions. And so now they're thinking that he got all these bones by robbing graves. And while it may not be illegal to sell human remains in the state of Pennsylvania, it actually is against the law to

rob a grave. And so now all police need to do is catch him in the act. And so one night they go stake out the local cemetery. And sure enough, they spot Jonathan in the act, walking back to his car, carrying a burlap

bag full of bones, like it's just another's day's work for him. And so they roll up on him. And this dude immediately confesses. He admits to stealing the bones and selling some of them online. And so, bam, police arrest him. Here's his mugshot. Now, eventually, police search his house and his storage unit,

and they find over 100 full or partial sets of human skeletal remains. And as of right now, although Jonathan did confess and they did find the bones, at his house, he actually hasn't been convicted of this because he hasn't actually been to trial yet. And so technically, this is all alleged.