grave robbery – If there is something

The Hendricks County Grave Robberies Part 4

As the winter of 1987 rolled in, the reports of opened graves and disturbed cemetery plots in central Indiana ceased. It makes sense that snow and frozen earth would put the brakes on grave robbing activities. Finding it difficult to operate in the winter months, the fair-weather-satanists probably took their activities indoors as outdoor conditions became inhospitable.

With 15 graves robbed in Hendricks County and no suspects in sight, at least one expert voiced the opinion that the focus on satanists was misguided. Julia M. Corbett, Religious Studies professor at Ball State University, told the Indianapolis Star that the profile of a grave robber did not match that of a typical satanist.

According to Corbett these crimes were committed by “real ‘sickies’ out there who do things like animal sacrifice and grave robbing and things like that and say they’re doing it in the name of satanism.

“My impression of it… is that we have a collection of several incidents that may be tied together of people simply doing very bizarre things that are being labeled satanism. It’s very probably not associated with the Church of Satan.

“Legitimate satanists don’t break laws as long as they consider it’s for the public good. I’m quite sure the grave robbing wouldn’t be in the public interest. ‘Devil-worshipper’ is kind of a convenient catchbasket when something negative like this happens,” Corbett said.

Police did manage to apprehend at least one individual who was not acting in the public interest. A Hendricks County teen-ager was arrested for robbing the grave of a woman buried in 1865. Although the theft occurred three years earlier, the youth had only recently confessed his misdeeds to the police. When questioned by investigators, the youth admitted that he had removed the earth from the grave. Once the casket was exposed, he smashed the glass in the lid and searched inside for jewelry or other valuable items. Finding nothing of value, the youth removed some teeth from the skull and took them. The young man was charged with misdemeanor criminal mischief and theft.

As the calendar turned to 1988, stories about the Hendricks County grave robberies investigation began to fizzle in the local press, even as the news of satanic activity exploded in the national media. However, Lt. Michael J. Nelson did not give up the investigation, despite being told by Sheriff Roy Waddell to drop inquiries into alleged satanic activity in the county. Additionally, when national media outlets like the Wall Street Journal, People Magazine, and the New York Times came calling, Lt. Nelson gave interviews without getting permission from Waddell.

Sheriff Waddell was not pleased to see the local issue sensationalized in the national media. “In the 30 years I’ve been here, I’ve had no experience with satanic cults, before or since this. We try to investigate all avenues and that’s one avenue that could be considered, but nothing panned out. That’s not to say we don’t have any individuals who may, to whatever degree, be involved. I have no idea. But the bottom line is there’s no substance to think we have a satanic cult problem,” Waddell told the Indianapolis Star.

By February of 1988, Lt. Nelson found himself transferred from detective work to patrol duty, and in May he resigned from the Hendricks County Sheriff’s Department. “In a nutshell, without getting in a battle with him, I believe there is satanic activity and he believes there isn’t … .He just doesn’t feel it’s a legitimate investigation and there’s no basis for any satanic cult operating in the county,” Nelson said.

However, just a few months after Nelson’s resignation, three Hendricks County teen-agers were charged and found guilty of cruelty to an animal after they each confessed in juvenile court to participating in a ritual in which they cut out the heart of a live stray cat. The incident occured the previous October, around the time the grave robberies were discovered, and took place under the Avon Road bridge in Plainfield.

According to her testimony to the Hendricks County Circuit Court, the 16-year-old leader of the ritual sacrifice asserted that only animals are to be killed, not humans. ”In satanism, we believe that the human is the ultimate being – we don’t believe in violence or suicide. Murder of a human is wrong. But every religion has its own thing, and the cat (sacrifice) is ours.”

Apparently, they should have audited professor Corbett’s class before embarking on their satanic practices.

Another youth who admitted to stabbing the animal and cutting out its heart told the judge he became involved in satanism because he “just needed something to believe in. I can’t believe in anything anymore. I’ve had a rough life, your honor.”

While none of these incidents revealed a vast satanic underground in operation, they undoubtedly provided fuel for the paranoia that would grip Hendricks County and the entire state, making Indiana, in some respects, ground zero for the so-called satanic panic.

Sources:

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News

The Hendricks County Grave Robberies Part 3

While no vandals or cult members were apprehended by law enforcement on Halloween night, Hendricks County officials did receive a report of cult activity at a cemetery in Avon. Some adults allegedly witnessed a group of teens in black robes “holding sticks and dragging what appeared to be a body,” the Star reported.

Hendricks County Sheriff’s Lt. Stephen Golden offered his thoughts on the alleged cult activity.

“We are sure devil worship exists, but we don’t know if it is really going on (in the county) or if it’s teens playing a game or people out to steal things to sell. If it’s teens, a lot could have to do with movies they’re watching like Prince of Darkness or Nightmare on Elm Street. If it is teens, it’s a very small select group of teen–agers that are not representative of teens here in Hendricks County.”

Although investigators believed more than one cult was operating in the area, they could not determine whether the groups were involved in devil worship. Additionally, Golden clarified that in most instances the devil worship activity was not illegal.

“When they trespass on people’s property, dig up graves and when they kill or maim animals, then it becomes our business. That’s why we want to find out what’s going on and get to the bottom of it.”

Investigators reported discovering a ritual site in a densely wooded area near I-74 and State Road 267 north of Brownsburg. A tree spray-painted with a “666” and the word “Satan” marked the site. Attached to the tree were a pair of ropes with an ax handle hanging from one of the ropes. Also present at the site were two small platforms and a candle in a jar.

At the previously mentioned bonfire site northeast of Pittsboro, where an 8-inch bone was found, investigators also discovered candle wax drippings on a table. Tests performed on the bone showed it to be that of a large dog.

Then in the early morning hours of November 4, 1987, the night manager of a Brownsburg restaurant was driving home from work along a dark stretch of road outside Pittsboro. Near the intersection of County Roads 750 North and 475 East, the man suddenly came upon a vehicle parked in the middle of the road. Unable to stop, he was forced to drive off the road to avoid hitting the vehicle. Angered at the driver in the stopped vehicle, the night manager grabbed an ax handle he kept in his car for protection. (Apparently, ax handles were widely available and in heavy rotation back in 1987.) As the night manager exited his vehicle, a man wearing a black leather jacket, a black hood and a black glove with spikes or claws appeared out of the darkness. Additionally, two other men wearing ski masks emerged from another vehicle. The night manager was pushed to the ground, kicked and struck by the group, and slashed across the face and abdomen by the man with the claw glove. The men fled when the night manager lost consciousness.

The night manager was not badly injured and the assailants were never identified. Robbery was ruled out as a motive in the attack because the restaurant’s deposit the manager carried with him was not taken.

As highly bizarre as the attack appeared, it was not an isolated incident. Due to the popularity of the Nightmare on Elm Street series, assaults committed by individuals with clawed or studded gloves were not altogether uncommon back in 1987. But with fears already running high over reports of satanism and satanic crimes in the press, the attack only caused the paranoia to grow.

Sources:

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News

The Hendricks County Grave Robberies Part 2

As Halloween 1987 approached, reports of grave robberies in Hendricks County continued to pour in. On October 27, the remains of four people were discovered missing at the Weaver-Dillon Cemetery, bringing the total number of grave robberies to ten. A resident who lives nearby discovered the open graves while walking in the wooded area northeast of Pittsboro, Indiana. Lt. Stephen G. Golden expressed doubts about a Halloween prank, as the work involved in opening the graves required a great deal of digging and the location was very secluded.

The largest hole was marked by a headstone inscribed with the names Joeann F. Dillon, Judith M. Dillon, James W. Dillon, Abia Dillon and Flemingo Dillon whose deaths occurred between 1852 and 1919. Golden commented that the freshness of the dirt indicated the hole had been dug sometime within the previous two months. Another hole lay at the base of a headstone with the inscription “Emma V., wife of S. A. Surber.” Nearby another large hole with no headstone marking the grave had been dug and filled back in.

With no apparent motive and little to go on other than the profile of an extremely fit and prolific hole digger, the theory that the crimes were motivated by satan worship moved to the forefront. An 8-inch-long bone resembling a femur discovered at the most recent site, bolstered the satanic angle.

“What’s significant is that it was found near a bonfire site. In rituals, they usually have a bonfire near the cemetery,” Lt. Golden told reporters.

For Sheriff’s Lt. Michael J Nelson, who had been working on the grave robberies since they first began appearing, the satanic cult angle had always been at the top of his list. Investigators believed that almost anything found in the hundred-year-old graves would be of value to a group of satan worshippers. Items discovered in these ancient graves would bond members to the group, investigators thought.

Needless to say, residents of this part of Hendricks County were becoming very nervous indeed. Grave robberies and allegations of devil worship would send a chill down anybody’s spine in 1987. But Lt. Golden assured the public it was too soon to start worrying.

“Sure, it’s unusual, but people shouldn’t be scared. Hopefully, we’ll find out who’s doing it and they’ll be arrested,” Golden said.

However, the grave robberies continued. On Halloween 1987, an Indianapolis Star headline announced “5 more graves disturbed in Hendricks County.” According to the article, attempts had been made to steal the remains of five more people, but it could not be determined whether the thieves were successful in their endeavor.

Meanwhile, additional reports of graveyard malfeasance flooded into the Hendricks County Sheriff’s office. In Avon, a woman reported that a private cemetery on her property had been targeted. A four foot deep hole had been dug at the site of one grave, but no remains removed. Two other cemeteries in the Pittsboro area showed attempts to open graves that were abandoned after two feet of digging. In one instance, it appeared the robbery had been attempted several months earlier, as the hole showed signs it had been dug earlier in the spring.

“What is getting strange now is, for some reason, they’re digging part of the way into these graves and then quitting,” Lt. Golden told reporters.

Could there have been a copycat on the loose who didn’t have the stomach to finish the job, or could the older abandoned attempts show a grave robber who was just getting started but lacked the confidence to see the gruesome task through?

Whatever the case, Lt. Golden called up a number of local reservists to patrol the area on Halloween night in hopes of catching a grave digging ghoul in the act. After all, what twisted creature of the night or sick satanic cult could resist communing with the dead on Halloween night?

At the time and given the circumstances, Golden’s plan was necessary and had to be undertaken. But imagine being a local citizen called up to stake out a remote, ancient cemetery on Halloween night. In retrospect, it sounds like a movie premise with loads of comedic potential, something like Abbott and Costello Meet the Body Snatcher.

At any rate, with the level of weirdness in Hendricks County cranked up to 11, it seemed impossible that events could get any weirder, but as Hunter S. Thompson used to say, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”

Sources:

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News

The Hendricks County Grave Robberies Part 1

On Monday, September 28, 1987, Hendricks County Sheriff’s deputies followed up on a report of a recently reopened grave in a remote cemetery plot north of Plainfield, Indiana. A hiker discovered the disturbed area near a tributary of White Lick Creek while exploring the surrounding farm fields and wooded areas. A six foot deep hole had been dug at one grave site and the remains removed, while several inches of topsoil had been cleared from two other plots.

The site was an old family cemetery belonging to the Carters, an early pioneer family who in 1823 settled 240 acres in that part of Guilford Township. One grave belonged to Ruth Hadley Carter, who died at the age of 68 on April 24, 1869. Another grave belonged to a two-month-old infant, and the third grave was unmarked.

Regarding what would motivate an individual to remove centuries old remains from a remote and obscure settler grave, there weren’t many good theories. Hendricks County Sheriff Lt. Stephen G. Golden speculated that the robbers could have been looking for antique jewelry, or the disturbance was possibly just a sick prank.

Christopher S. Peebles, director of the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology at Indiana University, was also uncertain of what the vandals would have found in the grave other than skeletal remains. “I don’t know what would have been left in this case, but it all comes down to thievery, pure and simple. It’s pretty sick for someone to dig up graves for no apparent purpose. I suspect it’s someone with a screw loose,” Peebles said.

There was one thing investigators did know for sure, the present scene of a recently looted grave in Central Indiana was not an isolated incident. Only a month earlier, residents of nearby Brownsburg and Greenfield, Indiana, went to clean up an ancient family cemetery near Brownsburg and discovered one of the graves dug up and the remains missing. Walker Cemetery, as it is known, sits along 56th street near Brownsburg about a mile west of the Marion County line. The missing remains belonged to Ann Walker, a member of one of Brownsburg’s founding families.

Whether it was someone with a screw loose, a thief in search of valuables, or some twisted, rogue member of the local historical society was anybody’s guess. However, in 1987 there was one theory that explained a lot of grisly and macabre behavior: devil worship. In the climate of the time, it was difficult to understand a series of grave robberies as having any explanation other than dirty deeds done in service of the dark arts. And as the discoveries of disturbed graves and missing remains continued, and tales of strange hooded figures deepened the mystery, the spectre of Satanism spread like a fever until all became infected with its delirium.

Sources:

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News