Copyright New York Daily News
Authorities in a small Pennsylvania town are investigating the theft of two bodies from a long-abandoned mausoleum in a disused cemetery, according to local police. Good Shepherd Memorial Park Mausoleum in Plains Township was burglarized sometime between Nov. 1 and Nov. 6, authorities said in a statement on Monday. “During the burglary the remains of two people were removed from their crypts,” the Plains Township Police Department confirmed on social media, though they didn’t identify the people whose bodies were snatched. Cops are now seeking the public’s help in nabbing the grave robbers. They don’t have much to go on as the cemetery has fallen into disrepair during 20 years of neglect, so there are no surveillance cameras to capture any vandals. Current owners Lawrence Lee and Viktoriia Evstafieva paid $4,500 for the six-acre property at a tax auction in 2005 after it had changed hands several times, the Sunday Dispatch reported. Later claiming they had no idea they were buying a cemetery, they sued the county and lost. In the years since, the owners have stopped paying real estate taxes and currently owe more than $66,000, according to WBRE/WYOU, the NBC and CBS affiliates in the area. The structurally unsound, leaky mausoleum was also condemned in 2015, years after the owners walked away — with no one, not even the county, willing to take responsibility for its upkeep. While dozens of families of the deceased have paid out of their own pockets, spending thousands of dollars, to have their loved ones transferred elsewhere, there are still numerous people buried at the cemetery, according to WBRE/WYOU. The situation became a legitimate nightmare for the families whose loved ones remained entombed there in July, when part of the mausoleum crumbled to reveal a casket in full view, the first time that had happened. “I was very upset,” said Denise Kumor, who told the outlet she transferred her parents out last year. “I was devastated, and I was thankful that I had gotten my parents out when I did.” Some residents have called for the town to take possession, but Plains Township Commissioner Tom Shubilla said the owners are ultimately liable for the maintenance and that the town has no jurisdiction. “It is a property that is owned by somebody else,” he told WBRE/WYOU. “The township really has no say or authority on the cemetery itself.” The owners have essentially washed their hands of the place and decamped to Florida, the station reported. “We did not purchase the business part of it,” Evstafieva told the outlet in 2006. “We did not intend to continue this place as a cemetery.”
