Happy new year, everyone! š
To start off 2022, I have the pleasure of hosting multi-award-winning author, Lee Murray, to the blog. Her flash fiction story, Heart Music, appears in the upcoming anthology, Among the Headstones, edited by Rayne Hall (further details below). Iāve ordered my copy and I look forward to reading Leeās story, along with a host of other talented authors.
Today, Lee shares with us some of the history behind body snatching, including two modern cases that are both shocking and macabre.
Thank you, Lee, for sharing and being with us today.
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Body snatching, the theft of a body or body parts from a burial site (as opposed to graverobbing, where sites are excavated for valuable artefacts), is an ancient and macabre practice, and curiosity is a key motivation. Indeed, scientific curiosity, coupled with this morbid practice, contributed much to our early understanding of the human body, for example. While da Vinci is believed to have dissected around thirty cadavers obtained with permission from various hospitals to inform his anatomical drawings, his contemporary, Flemish physician Andreas Vesalius, reportedly pillaged cemeteries for the corpses he dissected, his subsequent book of anatomical drawings, published in 1543, dispelling long-held theories about human biology. In the 19th century when anatomical research was at its zenith, despite the associated cultural taboos, there was a high demand for corpses, so body snatching became a lucrative industry, with the desecration occurring in the few days before the dead had time to decompose. In fact, in many western countries, body snatching for medical use became so commonplace that people took measures to protect their dead, including introduction of mort-safes (iron cage structures), or hired guards.
Body snatching is not confined to the distant past, however. In a bizarre New Zealand case, four young men stole a dead babyās skull from a Wellington cemetery in 2002. The trio had roamed the cemetery previously, attempting (unsuccessfully) to break into a concrete crypt, stealing a marble ornament instead. Then, six days later, together with another friend, they returned to the cemetery after a night of heavy drinking, this time bringing a spade and a hacksaw. While one of the men served as a lookout, the others broke into two century-old vaults. In the first, the ring-leaderāa man named Hollandāsifted through an urn of human ashes with his hand. The group then stole the remains of a baby from the second vault, carrying it back to Hollandās flat in the lead lining of its coffin, where they cut a section from the babyās crown and removed part of its jawbone. Holland went on to use the skull as an ashtray and the infantās jawbone as a necklace (which he later lost). The group disposed of the rest of the corpse and the coffin lining by throwing them into the harbour. Days later, a man walking his dog through the cemetery reported that the vaults had been vandalised and a subsequent inventory uncovered the missing coffin. In his diary, one of the convicted men confessed to the crime, writing: āWe stole a coffin with a dead baby in it and took it back to our place and broke into it. This is as bad as murder; I canāt believe we did it.ā He could not explain his involvement, putting it down to madness: āI am deranged. Today has been terrible and we have earned backstage tickets to hell.ā However, ring-leader Hollandās explanation for his role in the bodysnatching was that he was ācuriousā.
While Iām not at all tempted to scour the cemeteries for freshly opened graves, I can attest that my flash fiction tale, āHeart Musicā, which appears in Among the Headstones (edited by Rayne Hall) was the result of my own grisly curiosity surrounding body snatching. I was drawn, not to the cemetery, but to multiple news reports of Russian scholar Anatoly Moskvin, who was arrested in 2011 for stealing the remains of forty-four dead girls between the ages of 3 and 12 years. Moskvin mummified twenty-six of the girls in salt and soda and kept the resulting ādollsā in plain sight his parentsā apartment, claiming at a parole hearing in 2020 that he had ābrought them home and warmed them upā after their parents had abandoned them to the grave. Some of the ādollsā had music boxes wedged in their chest cavities, hence the title of my piece.
Iāll admit that while the reports of Moskvinās crimes are gruesome and shocking, they hold a certain fascination. Such a macabre story. Moskvin, who suffers from schizophrenia and remains incarcerated, claimed the children āsang to himā and that he did not exhume them until they responded to him, giving him their permission. His motivation for bringing the corpses home? In part, it was because he was getting too old to spend the night in cemeteries, so instead he brought his āchildrenā home where they might be more comfortable. But another motivation was his curiosity, as Moskvin was convinced he would one day discover a way to revive his beloved corpses, either through science or black magic.
With āHeart Musicā, I hoped to bring a fresh perspective to the reports, taking the point of view of an imaginary teenager, one who had died before sheād had a chance to live, curious as to how she might respond to the body snatcherās advances.
References
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8904599/Graverobber-stole-girls-corpses-doll-collection-refuses-apologise-parents.html (Warning: Graphic content).
About the Author
Lee Murray is a multi-award-winning writer and editor of science fiction, fantasy, and horror from Aotearoa-New Zealand, and a USA Today Bestselling author. Leeās flash fiction, āHeart Musicā, a 2021 Ladies of Horror Fiction Award finalist, first appeared in her Bram Stoker AwardĀ®-winning fiction collection Grotesque: Monster Stories (Things in the Well, 2020) Read more atĀ https://www.leemurray.info/
About the Book
This book, edited by Rayne Hall, presents twenty-seven of the finest – and creepiest – graveyard tales with stories by established writers, classic authors and fresh voices.
Here you’ll find Gothic ghost stories by Robert Ellis, Lee Murray, Greg Chapman, Morgan Pryce, Rayne Hall, Guy de Maupassant, Myk Pilgrim, Zachary Ashford, Amelia Edwards, Nina Wibowo, Krystal Garrett, Tylluan Penry, Ambrose Bierce, Cinderella Lo, Nikki Tait, Arthur Conan Doyle, Priscilla Bettis, Kyla Ward, Edgar Allan Poe, Paul D Dail, Cameron Trost, Pamela Turner, William Meikle and Lord Dunsany who thrill with their eerie, macabre and sometimes quirky visions.
You’ll visit graveyards in Britain, Indonesia, Russia, China, Italy, Bulgaria, Thailand, USA, Australia, South Africa and Japan, and you can marvel at the burial customs of other cultures.
Now let’s open the gate – can you hear it creak on its hinges? – and enter the realm of the dead. Listen to the wind rustling the yew, the grating of footsteps on gravel, the hoo-hoo-hoo of the collared dove. Run your fingers across the tombstones to feel their lichen-rough sandstone or smooth cool marble. Inhale the scents of decaying lilies and freshly dug earth.
But be careful. Someone may be watching your every movement… They may be right behind you.
Purchase Link: Ā mybook.to/Headstones
The ebook is available for pre-order from Amazon at the special offer price of 99 cents until 31 January 2021. (After that date, the price will go up.)Ā A paperback will follow.
Body snatching kids’ corpses from their graves? Now that IS macabre. I’m glad the various real-life perpetrators were caught!
Yes, it’s good they were all caught. Have you seen the article link on Moskvin and his ‘dolls’? It’s quite disturbing!
I get the creeps thinking that someone might dig my body up and cut it up. Rationally, I know that it won’t make a difference, but I still don’t like the feeling. It must be horrible for bereaved people to know the body of their loved one has been mutilated this way.
Hi Rayne. Yes, and both of these cases involved the bodies of children. Just horrific!
Could a deed of this kind become the backstory of one of your future novels?
Once again, I am both horrified and fascinated by the human mind and its twitches. To think that someday all of these people were perfectly normal? Nothing creeps me out more than real-life stories, because you never know when and where the next one will be revealed. I doubt the image of these girls will leave me anytime soon. What a thrilling warm-up for the story!
Hi Lana. Despite all our talk about monsters, what human beings are capable of, frightens me the most. Both these stories are truly disturbing, and I agree, a great introduction to Lee’s story. Thanks for stopping by! š
Wow, this whole blog post is such an interesting read! Just the thought of digging up bodies from graves gives me goosebumps. Like aren’t they scared the peaceful souls of the dead would haunt them for eternity for disturbing their sleep? This also reminds me of the news that I read recently *trigger warning* there’s two siblings that also dig up the dead bodies from graves, but what’s worse is…they cook those dead bodies and eat it. Both are in jail now, but that news still gives me chills up to this day.
Oh, how awful! Makes you wonder what goes through these people’s minds to do such things. I’m glad to hear they’ve been caught. Thanks for stopping by, Jayvel. š
Indeed! As a psychology students, there must be a past-experience that could’ve cause their actions now. There’s always a reason behind things, and it’s interesting if we get to know those reasons so we can understand people more.
That’s sounds truly macabre. I couldn’t believe the story of Moskvin when I first heard about him a few years back. If anyone ever attempts to dig me up, I promise I will come back and haunt them! Looking forward to reading your story!
That story of Moskvin is truly disturbing – I can’t unsee those images. I’d be inclined to be a vengeful ghosts, too! Thanks for stopping by, Tylluan. š
Well, I am totally fine with my body contributing to the medical field but serving as an ashtray is absolutely not my dream. I hope no pyscho gets near my grave.
Yes, that’s truly quite bizarre. Reminds me a bit of Ed Gein. Thanks for stopping by! š
Wow thank you for the information about these morbid events. The point of view you adopted for this story is an great one. How did you first come across the information on body snatching?
Hi Marvellous. I agree, it’s an interesting background and perspective, and I look forward to reading Lee’s story. Thanks for stopping by. š
Hmm, now that i know about these incidents, I will make sure i give the finger when i die hope for rigor mortis to solve the problem.
Ha! That would be the cause of some interesting theories! Thanks for stopping by, Ahmet. š
It’s my pleasure.
I had forgotten about Moskvin…After reading the article I remembered how hottified I was a few years ago when I read about his unfathomable activities…
Thank you fo the interview. It is macbre but enjoyable to read. I was fascinated by the body snatching stories…Looking forward to read Lee Murray’s story in the anthology.
Diana A.
Hi Diana. What’s also shocking about Moskvin is that he refuses to apologise to the parents for what he did. Just adding insult to injury. My pleasure for sharing! Thanks for stopping by. š
How messed up must one be in order to steal the body of a dead child? Even in war, every soldier must respect the remains of their dead enemies. I can understand that one person might have a psychological problem, but four people, four different individuals, and none of them raised a voice, that is beyond logic. I think this shows how easy it is to lead people into unacceptable things.
It’s pretty scary the influence some people have over others, and how they can be easily manipulated. Unfortunately, it happens all too often. Thanks for stopping by. š
What a spooky real story.
Even though the source of inspiration is so gruesome and the topic macabre, I found āHeart Musicā to be delicate and modern, short and emotional in a way hard to explain.
Thank you for this post!
Hi Tudor. Thank you for sharing your thoughts about Lee’s story. Your description and the inspiration behind it has made me all the more eager to read it! Thanks for stopping by. š
Can you tell us more about your writing process?? Were you originally drawn to writing horror stories, or do you also explore other genres outside horror?
Theft on it’s own is bad. Then Body theft? Just eewww!