Grave robbers, it sounds like something out of an old Frankenstein movie. We know they existed and plundered the final resting places of the pharos of old, but I wonder how many people today realize that grave robbers are still in business? In 1984 the infamous cannibal and grave robber, Ed Gein died in Wisconsin's Central State Hospital for the criminally insane. You may not recognize the name Ed Gein but you most likely will recognize the killer the movie Texas Chainsaw Massacre is about. Gein was convicted of necrophilia, cannibalism, and murder. Another name for Gein was Leatherface because he would make masks from his victims skin, along with furniture. Gein was a person who lived alone on a huge farm that wasn't actively farmed. He didn't have to farm because he received enough government subsidies to live on. He became very interested in the NAZI experiments on the Jews in World War II and especially in female anatomy. He began his career by digging up graves of female corpses at night. He loved to dissect them and keep some of the parts. He would then skin the body and either wear the skin while dancing or put it over a dress maker's dummy. All this grave robbing led him to want real women to dissect He was indeed a human monster.

This is a little off track, but interesting. In 1983 a body was discovered in a bog at Lindow Moss in England. A suspect confessed to the murder but on further examination of the body, which was extremely well preserved, it was found to be over 2,000 years old.

In 1993 grave robbers stole the body of Ransom Olds. Olds was the founder of the Oldsmobile company.

In Peru grave robbers were not after a body but a 1,000 year old mural. It was destroyed by those trying to steal it.

One of my favorite stories is about the grave robbers that broke into the grave of Nostradamus. It was May of 1791 and many people believed the legend that who ever drank wine from the skull of the prophet would gain his ability to see the future. There were three grave robbers and the story goes on that when they got the casket open there was a carved wooden sign of the chest of the skeleton with the inscription May 1791. You would have thought that this would have been enough to scare away the grave robbers but it didn't. One reached down and snatched the empty skull. He then poured wine into it and drank. At that moment a bullet that had missed it's mark from a nearby battle of the French Revolution struck and killed the man.

Not all grave robbers were evil. In the 1800s it was very hard for doctors to get bodies to practice on. Grave robbers supplied the corpses. This allowed the field of medicine, especially surgery to advance. Some medical schools couldn't have existed without bodies. A good example of this was Edinburgh Medical school in Scotland. Of course the relatives of the deceased weren't very happy when they found the graves empty.

Grave Robbing is looked upon as a capitol crime in many countries; In China, an official in Chengde City, Hebei Province, was sentenced to death for his part in helping to move relics stolen from Chinese graves. The irony here is the man was chief of the relics protection section of Chengde's Waibamiao Cultural Relics Management Department . He was charged with stealing over 152 antiques. Waibamiao is part of the imperial summer resort of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Grave robbing has become a big problem in Afghanistan. Balkh, in northern Afghanistan, is one of the oldest cities in the world. Grave robbers are digging up everything and stealing anything that isn't nailed down. It seems that this ancient city is easy pray, since it is unguarded and the government is just too busy to really care about that right now. The residents of the area claim that on any given day you will see at least 200 people digging for treasure.

In a bizarre case a woman dug up the grave of her lover who had died about 10 years ago. His ashes had been buried with some beer which she drank. The man's family felt that this had been an act of spite.

In South Africa a witch doctor had been arrested for digging up bodies. He may have been using human parts in his medicines which is against the law. "He had dug them from graves. He said he was healing people who were mentally ill, so he dug up the bones of people who had died,"

So as we see the practice of grave robbing is still alive (pardon the pun) today.