Four men equipped with shovels and dressed in dark clothing creep into a graveyard. Who are they? Their deeds will soon tell of the nature of their occupation. One man stands hidden behind a gravestone, his eyes looking back and forth, searching for something. The other three men gather around a freshly filled in grave and with a grunt, the first man drives his shovel into the earth. Time passes and soon a wooden box is hauled from the damp and dank grave. Crowbars quietly attempt to pry open the dirt covered lid; and with a sharp noise louder than these men would prefer the wood gives way. A body, clean from a pre-burial wash, pale from God-given death, and eyes that are closed forever is pulled from the coffin. The men quietly steal from the graveyard, now five in number. So one now asks; who are these men? Their silent midnight occupation would make them…grave robbers.
While this story is entirely made up, there are nuggets of truth in it. Grave robbing was one of the most infamous jobs one could have in the 1800’s. Grave robbing was not a dangerous crime to commit, contrary to popular belief. It was considered a misdemeanor not a felony in common law. Therefore, one could not be executed for robbing a grave, only fined and/or imprisoned. However, if a robber took anything material from the grave such as jewelry or clothing, it did turn into a felony. Robbers prided themselves on only taking the body and leaving everything else behind. The trade of grave robbing paid very well so taking the risk of a fine or a stint in jail was thought to be worth it. Many officials would turn a blind eye, considering it a necessary evil. The reason that the bodies needed to be stolen was that the doctors in training needed to dissect a human body to understand it better. The government did allowed bodies of executed criminals to be used but not enough executions were happening. Therefore, doctors with students (especially rich ones) turned to buying their own cadavers, usually not asking too many questions as to where they came from.
Grave robbing was a team job, so one man would stand guard to watch for any guards or family members of the deceased. Robbers would use wooden shovels to avoid the clang of shovels against each other. Once the coffin was excavated, the bottom or the top half of the lid was pried of using crowbars and then the body was roped out. Replacing the coffin in the earth, and filling the grave again, the robbers would then sneak out. They usually had the bodies pre-sold so all they had to do was deliver. This process would take no short amount of time (a couple hours) and was also a dirty job.
There were many techniques that grave robbers used to get the bodies. They would sometimes use young women to scope out the freshest graves. Posing as mourners, the women would attend a funeral, and come back with information concerning family members staying nearby, or whether the deceased had a communicable disease. Robbers would also bribe staff members as they had closer access to the bodies and could recommend which ones to steal. Local officials were paid off as needed, but the main problem was the families who would keep watch for a few days until the bodies were worth nothing. There were, however some very smart grave robbers. Upon seeing the families keeping guard, they would start digging a tunnel 15 to 20 feet away and burrow under the coffin, crack open one end and drag the body out the tunnel.
Grave robbing did reached its peak in the 1800’s when there was an increase of young people wanting to go into the medical profession. But it all really started with the Egyptians. Thieves would break into the tombs and take out the bodies, at first reburying their own then later another not even bothering with that. Many safeguards were employed to try and stop them, including extremely tight entrances, or 3 consecutive doors that were exceedingly thick (the doors were later found to have been blasted at with 19th century explosives). Finally the Egyptian priests had had enough so they moved the mummies to a communal grave, this being about 15 centuries before Jesus. In spite of this, the graves were eventually broken into by a notorious grave robbing family, the Abdel Rassouls in the 1870’s. When amulets and various rare cartouches appeared on the black market, the authorities went into action and arrested a man connected with the family. After extracting information from the man, the authorities went to the tomb and discovered Amenophis I, Tuthmosis I and II, Seti I, and Ramses I and III.
While those bodies were worth stealing, in general body snatchers didn’t care who they snatched. Resurrection men (as they were often called) stole the body of John Scott Harrison. Harrison was the son of President William Henry Harrison (the body was later returned after being found in a medical school). With so many people wanting to become doctors, there weren’t enough bodies to go around, so whether a person was famous or not was of little consequence to the resurrectionists unless they could get more money for it..
People didn’t like their relatives being stolen and they would often ransack the medical laboratories in an effort to get the bodies back. Many preventative measures were taken to make sure that the bodies didn’t need to be recovered in the first place. Families would keep watch by the grave for several days until the body was decomposed enough that the grave robbers wouldn’t take it. One preventative measure was patented by Philip K. Clover in Ohio. The “coffin torpedo” was rigged up underground and when the body snatchers would come and start digging the device would fire several lead balls into the intruders.
Grave robbing still happens in some countries to this day. In Colombia grave robbers (guaqueros) are participating in an illegal trade that makes millions of dollars a year. They are recognized as a labor union and one guaquero even published his memoirs. Tombs are not always robbed for bodies; in fact the guaqueros are only interested in the Aztec jewelry, Incan pottery and other Olmec and Mayan paraphernalia.
The need for grave robbing died out when the government made it legal to donate bodies of oneself or relatives to local medical schools. However, the history of grave robbing will always be around and will forever be one of the most interesting topics to research.
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