Stealing from the Dead

On December 18, 2013, thieves stole two 250-pound bronze mausoleum doors from Arlington Cemetery in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania (a Philadelphia suburb). The replacement value of the doors is about $30,000. This was their second trip to Arlington – they had stolen more doors the prior weekend, assuming the same thieves. (Links at the end of this article will take you to the news postings and videos regarding the story.)

What would anyone want with heavy bronze doors? Might they need replacements for the antechamber doors in their castle? Would they sell them on the black art market? Hardly. Most likely they would attempt to sell them for scrap. At current rates for bronze scrap ($2.00 per pound), the doors would fetch a thousand dollars (500 lbs. x $2.00 per pound). Bronze, being an alloy of copper and tin, is worth almost as much as copper (click link for current prices), the “gold” of the scrap metal industry.

But there’s a catch – and that is, quite literally, that the thieves or the scrap yard could be caught. Selling scrap is not so easy if the booty is recognizable. So if the thieves thought that it was hard enough to remove the pair of 250-pound doors from the mausoleum, lug them across a snow-covered cemetery, over a fence, and into a waiting vehicle – wait until they try to chop them up. That can’t be easy.

Blocked-up mausoleum entrance

And if they pound or cut them into unrecognizable chunks, they’ll have to cart it all off to a scrapyard and try to pass it off as (relatively) worthless – and not stolen – junk. One trick my father taught me (as he would sometimes sell a truckload of scrap metal to the junkyard) is that if you mix the questionable stuff up with the REALLY worthless stuff, it’s more difficult to detect the former. Not that he stole from cemeteries, of course. When one person tosses an old refrigerator or a roll of copper wire in the trash, there are scrappers who pick it out and sell it to a metal recycling operation (or, as they were called when I was a kid in the 1960s, a “junk yard”). Recycling scrap metals means extra cash for some people. Today, with a poor economy and scrap metal values as high as they are, THEFT of metals to be sold as scrap is rampant.

Grave medals a target for thieves

If a recycling or metal reclamation site gets caught buying stolen merchandise, the people involved may face jail time, fines, and restitution. A recent example  is described in this September 2013 article from the Isanti (Minnesota) County News: “Randall man sentenced for receiving stolen bronzestar markers from graves.” The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) is at the same time trying to put a more positive face on the situation, for the good of the industry, as we see in this excerpt from the article, “Combating Scrap Theft: ScrapDealers Don't Want It and They're Doing Something About It:”

The problem of metal theft is ever present, but it has boomed in recent months.

     The rash of scrap thefts has put recyclers in a difficult position. Many find themselves trying to maintain their incoming supply while guarding against accepting stolen material.

     "Unfortunately, with most scrap metal, there's just no way to tell the difference between legitimate scrap and that which has been stolen -- it all looks the same,” said Chuck Carr, spokesman for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI). "Recyclers are also confronted with the challenge of protecting their own inventory from theft, both at their facilities and in transit to their customers."

     To meet these challenges, recyclers are engaging in cooperative crime-fighting efforts with other recyclers and law enforcement officials.

     In general, scrap recyclers must address scrap thefts on two fronts: First, they must protect themselves from having their own material stolen.  And second, they must protect themselves from inadvertently buying stolen material over the scale.

     Recyclers are taking steps to identify incoming stolen material and avoid purchasing it. Scrap operators know it's illegal to intentionally purchase stolen material. They also recognize the potential out-of-pocket losses they may suffer by unwittingly buying such material. If the material's rightful owner or local authorities find the stolen goods in a recycler's yard, they can reclaim it without having to reimburse the recycler.

Mausoleum with blocked-up front door (Wilmington, Delaware)

Doorless mausoleum

So how did the thieves get the doors off the mausoleums, anyway? They pried them open (where the two doors meet in the center) and then removed the side hinges from each door. Arlington has now chained the door handles together on its remaining eighteen mausoleums to prevent future theft. Attractive sight, isn’t it? I’ve seen this a lot, in many cemeteries, and just assumed it was done to prevent unauthorized entry. I’ve also seen mausoleums with the doors missing altogether. and many with the window and door openings blocked up. All a result of theft, I imagine.

And what about the families who own the mausoleums? Does a cemetery insure itself against such theft? Do the families who own the mausoleums insure the building? Arlington Cemetery is home to the Museum of Mourning Arts, a wonderful museum of Victorian funerary art. I hope the building has an electronic security system. The cemetery itself is immaculate, a genteel purlieu in a residential neighborhood, fronted by busy Lansdowne Avenue. Its wooded acres are very well-maintained, though such bucolic forested landscaping offers convenient cover for thieves. Hard to believe such a theft could occur here, and no one see the theft in process. If anyone reading this has any information about the doors, please call Upper Darby Police's anonymous tip line at 610-734-3439. 

Even more difficult to believe is that a similar theft occurred earlier at nearby Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, Pa, four miles from Arlington. Three sets of doors were stolen from this Catholic Archdiocese cemetery. It has many more mausoleums to choose from and is a larger cemetery, making it potentially easier to perpetrate such a crime. Holy Cross is one of my favorite cemeteries in which to make photographic art, so the desecration is even closer to home. The image of the Christmas wreath on the mausoleum door that you see at the beginning of this blog was made in Holy Cross a few years ago. I’m wondering if the doors are still there.

Nothing is safe when people are hard up for money, perhaps money to feed a drug habit, as police suspect in the Arlington thefts. The bronze medallions (see photo at left) that mark veterans’ graves in many cemeteries are easy pickings, certainly easier than a mausoleum door. They go missing all the time (see link). Though I never weighed one, I assume each weighs a pound. Fifty of these at $2.00 apiece would fetch one hundred dollars as scrap. You can buy a gram of heroin with that. (My mathematically-inclined readers have already done the math and see that the value of heroin is TWICE that of gold!)

Ed Snyder with "Silent Sentinel" (photo Frank Rausch)

Cemeteries need a silent sentinel to keep theft down these days. This particular bronze sculpture of a Civil War soldier, coincidentally known as the “Silent Sentinel,” used to stand in Philadelphia’s Mount Moriah Cemetery. In the 1970s, it was recovered while thieves were in the act of removing it. It had been knocked off its granite pedestal, chained to a pickup truck and was being dragged out of the cemetery. The theft was thwarted and the statue was placed in storage for safekeeping. The “Silent Sentinel” was restored and kept in a foundry for safekeeping for forty years. Not until 2013 did it see the light of day. It now stands (temporarily) in the office at Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery.

References and Further Reading:

Scumbags steal mausoleum doors from Delco cemetery

250 pound bronze mausoleum doors stolen from delaware county cemetery

Bronze doors stolen from Upper Darby cemetery

Bronze grave markers stolen

Thieves snatch grave markers at grand view memorial park

Rescued 'Silent Sentinel' Civil War statue going to Laurel Hill Cemetery

Museum of Mourning Art

While there are a few "Death" museums in the U.S., the one in Drexel Hill's Arlington Cemetery (western Philadelphia suburb) is one of the few that does not cater to sensationalism and grislyness. Officially named "Museum of Mourning Art," this small museum presents a well-executed (pun intended) collection of funereal artifacts mainly from the Victorian Era (mid to late 1800s). This was the period in which funerary art was most popular and widespread in Western cultures. All artforms were affected, from sculpture, painting, and clothing to cemetery architecture, landscaping, and design. Garden cemeteries came into being with their extravagent monumentation and people wore jewely made from hair of the deceased. In other words, we were much more at ease with death than we are now (possibly because it was so much more prevalent and people just had to get used to it!).

At this point, I have no idea how in 2005 I stumbled upon the Museum of Mourning Art--word of mouth, probably. Unless you travel in these circles, how would you know? That's why you need me to dig these things up for you! The museum is located in the town of Drexel Hill, PA., in Arlington Cemetery. I've placed a link to their website at the end of this blog.

The cemetery itself is a rather pleasant suburban one, with no ornamentation or statuary to speak of. The only thing unusual about it is the structure within the grounds that houses the funeral home, offices, and museum--its a replica of Mount Vernon - George Washington's Virginia home. It seems the owners are GW fans! They even have a lock of his hair under glass in the museum!

The museum is devoted to the representation of grief in American and European culture. The docent is happy to show you around, or you can wander among the arifacts yourself (but please call first to make an appointment: 610-259-5800). Earlier I suggested that the proprietors seem to have avoided the shocking and sensational items other death museums revel in, but if you've never seen a life-sized horse-drawn funeral hearse or a cemetery gun, these bona fide historical artifacts can be quite shocking! The museum displays such commonplace Victorian items as original full-color lithographic funeral invitations, an instruction book on how to get into heaven, and the largest collection of funerary jewely I've ever seen! In fact, the first time I went there, the docent had the book for sale that you see here, "Mourning Arts Jewelry" (DeLorme, 2004 Schiffer Art Books). Have a look for a slice of life you may not have known existed here in the U.S. 150 years ago!

Now, I mentioned a "cemetery gun," a device with which you may be unfamiliar. Its purpose was to deter (and destroy) grave robbers! At nightfall when the average law-abiding citizen was not expected to venture onto the grounds, the gun was rigged to a trip wire at the cemetery entrance. A nefarious intruder would theoretically trip the wire by walking into the cemetery, and be shot by the gun. This isn't necessarily Burke and Hare Victorian folklore (notorious Scottish graverobbers/murderers) -- we really did have our own celebrated grave robbing in Philadelphia!

In the 1880s, Washington Square Park (Sixth and Walnut Streets) was a Potter's Field (a burial place for unknown or indigent people). Its quite possible the Quakers who patrolled the graveyard by night to deter tomb raiders may have set up cemetery guns as well. When they could evade the patrols and other deterrents, the body snatchers would dig up fresh cadavers and sell them to the Anatomy Department at Jefferson Medical College down the street (now part of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where I work). At the time, this was the only way for medical students to learn the insides of the human body. Though the clandestine practice was common in Western society, it was after all, illegal. Jefferson's involvement was monumental in the advance of medical practice because it spawned the Anatomy Act of 1883. In 1882, Dr. William S. Forbes, chairman of Jefferson's Anatomy Department, was arrested for complicity in the crime of grave robbing. Like the artist Thomas Eakins who risked his career and reputation for principles regarding the importance of anatomy in art education, Forbes, too, suffered public humiliation in achieving his goal of legalizing anatomical dissection in medical education.

The Anatomy Act promoted medical education "by the distribution and use of unclaimed human bodies for scientific purposes through a board created for that purpose and to prevent unauthorized uses and traffic in human bodies." The Pennsylvania law stopped the practice of body snatching and served as a model for other states which adopted similar legislation.

But I digress. Not only will you see one of these automated cemetery rifles at Arlington Cemetery's Museum of Mourning Art, but you'll see mannequins draped in mourning clothes, and a wooden coffin with a face window (so viewers can see if the deceased is breathing by fogging of the glass!). Death symbolism is studied and it was here at the museum I learned that the common cherub representation on modern tombstones evolved from the skull and crossbones! Evidence that the concept of death became socially less terrifying in the Victorian era than it was in prior times. (Click here to read more on the topic of this symbolism at my StoneAngels site.) So be prepared to learn if you go to the Museum of Mourning Art! While it may be shocking at first, you'll more likely be fascinated and leave with a greater appreciation of mortality and how it was viewed by our ancestors!

For more info on the Museum of Mourning Art, please see Arlington Cemetery's site. They even have a Facebook presence!

On the other hand, if Pet Death Taxidermy and Human Execution Devices are more up your alley, then the Museum of Death in Hollywood, CA might be what you seek. Or, if Civil War embalming techniques and Fantasy Coffins interest you, then the site for the National Museum of Funeral History (in Texas) might be worth a visit!