‘House of horrors’ uncovered as skulls and corpses found in man’s basement

Warning: This article contains information which some readers may find upsetting.

A man in the US has been charged with mass grave robbing after authorities found over 100 skulls and human remains were discovered in his basement.

Authorities in the state of Pennsylvania confirmed yesterday (8 January) that Jonathan Gerlach had been arrested and charged after a months-long investigation into a series of break-ins at the state's historic Mount Moriah Cemetery, which is said to house around 150,000 graves.

Police were able to trace the robberies back to Gerlach, finding long bones, mummified feet, decomposing torsos and over 100 human skulls stashed inside the 34-year-old's basement and a nearby storage locker.

It's not clear what Gerlach was allegedly doing with the remains, some of which are believed to be hundreds of years old.

Human skulls, bones and mummified remains were found in Gerlach's basement and a nearby storage unit (Getty Stock Images)

"Detectives walked into a horror movie come to life the other night. This is an unbelievable scene," Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse said of the case (via MailOnline).

"Very simply, detectives have recovered an awful lot of bones at this point, and we are still trying to piece together who they are, where they are from, and how many we are looking at," he continued.

Gerlach now faces over 500 charges related to the desecration of graves and removal of human remains, including 300 counts of theft, receiving stolen property and abuse of a corpse.

Authorities revealed some of the remains belong to victims who'd been just months old when they died, while another corpse retrieved had been fitted with a pacemaker.

"They were in various states. Some of them were hanging, as it were. Some of them were pieced together, some were just skulls on a shelf," Rouse continued.

"I grieve for those who are upset by this, who are going through it, who are trying to figure out if it is, in fact, their loved one or their child — because we found remains that we believe to be months-old infants — among those that he had collected."

Gerlach has admitted to taking 30 sets of human remains (Facebook)

According to court documents, Gerlach was apprehended by authorities on Tuesday (6 January) at the cemetery while walking back to his car with a crowbar.

He was also said to be carrying a bag which contained the remains of two small children, three skulls and several other bones.

He has since admitted to stealing around 30 sets of human remains from the cemetery.

It's not clear what he was planning to do with the remains, however ABC news has reported that he was a member of a Facebook group called 'Human Bones and Skull Selling Group' where he was pictured holding a skull.