GRAVES VIOLATED. The city owns a strip of ground, acquired from the squatters along the river front, immediately adjoining the cemetery and extending to the river, and if successful it is contemplated merging the two tracts into one new park. This policy being understood by a number of families, former members of which were buried there, arrangements were made for removing the bodies to other cemeteries; but almost invariably, when the graves were opened they showed the marks of having been violated. In only one or two cases were any remains found in the coffins, and these facts, coming to the attention of the authorities, caused much speculation as to the reason for it. In nearly every case where removals were attempted the bodies were those of people who had died within the last ten years, it being considered probable that at least something would remain of the bodies. Each grave showed, however, that some one had been there before the relatives. and the fact that the covers were wrenched off the boxes and the shrouds and other grave clothes bore marks of having been torn from the bodies indicated that grave robbers had done some profitable business there in time past. Gradually the facts leaked out and the full story is now known. From four to ten years ago, when subjects for the medical colleges were not so easily obtained as they are now, the business of grave robbing was done on a large scale and Greenlawn Cemetery, along with Mount Jackson, was the one most patronized. During all this time it was a rule among those engaged In the business never to allow a subject to be in its grave over night If possible, and usually the last of the relatives had scarcely loft the cemetery before the robbers began to exhume the remains. It was stated yesterday by one formerly engaged in the work that during the last few years that Greenlawn Cemetery was used for a burying place not one body was allowed to remain in the ground, but generally before rigor mortis had departed it was in the dissecting room of one of the colleges. At first it was customary to open a grave and take the body out, clothes and all, and either strip it naked on the ground or double it up in a pack and remove the clothes after taking it to a safe place. CAUSE OF DISCONTINUANCE. This practice was discontinued when one day the city was thrown into an uproar over the finding of a girl’s slipper in the snow beside her newly made grave. She had been buried one afternoon in winter when the snow was falling and her relatives came back the following day to look at the grave. Between visits the grave robbers got in their work, and, following the usual custom, did not remove the clothing from the body, but doubled it up and put it in a sack. In doing so one of the dainty slippers fell from one of the feet. and, being white, was not noticed lying in the snow. During the following morning the snow melted and the relative, returning to the grave, saw the slipper, and, recognizing it, raised a hue and cry. This made the grave robbers change their methods, and thereafter after opening the boxes they stripped all bodies of their clothes and put the garments back in the caskets. This when related to the authorities explained why in opening the graves within the last few months nothing was to be seen in the caskets but piles of discolored clothes thrown in heaps, with slippers where the head ought to have rested, but with no sign of flesh, bones or even hair, which has always been considered to be almost indestructible and has been found in graves even after bones have begun to crumble. It has come to be generally understood by the city officials that although. Greenlawn has all the outward signs of being a cemetery, there are in reality few, if any, bodies there, and that in view of this fact there should be no opposition to its ‘being transformed into a park.’ 

Indianapolis Journal, Volume 49, Number 300, Indianapolis, Marion County, 27 October 1899