By the early 1800’s many inner city church burying places were already becoming overcrowded. 18th Century Grave Robbers You wouldn't think there would have been much grave robbing going on in London during the 1700s but there was. The thieves in the past were more interested in the valuables on the body, rather than the corpse itself. Meghan. Philip K. Clover of Columbus, Ohio, developed a device that was to "prevent the unauthorized resurrection of dead bodies." Robbing a grave could take less than an hour. THE ROBBING OF GRAVES “‘The sensational instances of grave-robbing that have just come to light in Indianapolis remind me of a similar event in which the late Maj. Jonathan W. Gordon figured when he was a young man,” said Andrew J. Grayson, of Madison. Urban sprawl had spread around the churches, and a lack of maintenance and care led to many complaints about vagrants, grave robbing and theft of funerary objects. ... A gang of body-snatchers pulled him from the grave, stripped him of his shroud, and delivered him to a local university. Body snatching is a term that describes the act of secretly removing corpses from graves in order to sell them. There were at least 17 similar riots over grave-robbing and dissections between the mid-18th and the mid-19th centuries. Grave robbing has been around since the beginning of time. Famous Cases of Grave Robbings Form six groups Groups will go ONE AT A TIME No notes!! By. Using a wooden spade, which made less noise, the earth was moved from the top end of the coffin. Scientists such as Victor Frankenstein stole body parts to conduct scientific research and experiments. Grave robbery is often an issue when archaeologists dig up artifacts from ancient people. Due to these factors and increasing health concerns, the rural cemetery was born. Using a crowbar, the coffin lid was then forced open. Following are 15 very true (if morbid) stories of people who … Most states treat grave robbery as its own offense, although some states incorporate grave robbery into other robbery statutes. Grave robbery is the offense of removing a body or artifacts from a grave. The body was dragged out, and stripped naked, and the soil returned to the grave. To prevent grave-robbing from occurring, numerous people tried to develop inventions to deter the robbers. 15 Chilling Stories Of Grave-Robbing... And What The Thieves Were Really After. In the 21st century, dead bodies have become big business. Grave robbery by the "Resurrectionist Men", often doctors themselves was a problem in the 19th century as medical schools needed fresh cadavers for dissection classes. Grave Robbers and Dissection Labs: The Nightmares of 19th Century America. Washington Cemetery the Site of a Body Snatching in 1878. Strange Cases of Victorian Body Snatching. NOTE: This post is not related in any way to the 1956 sci-fi film that depicts an extraterrestrial invasion where the invaders “steal” human bodies. According to Tim Marshall’s Murdering to Dissect: Grave-Robbing, Frankenstein and the Anatomy Literature, “By design, the law associated dissection with the punishment meted out to the worst offenders; henceforth, dissection was invested with a stigma which was difficult if not impossible to remove in the long term.