The consumption --- tuberculosis --- had finally depleted her 27 year-old body of any strength, and comforted by her widowed father, Glendore Gates died. The funeral service was held at the family home, 5798 E. Washington Street, two days later on Friday, July 11, 1902. Then Wesley Gates, along with other mourners, followed the horse drawn hearse carrying his daughter east to Arlington Avenue, north to 10th Street, and then east again to Anderson Cemetery. After the final good-byes, Glendore Gates was left for her eternal rest in a grave "too nice to disturb."
A month later on August 12th, 41 year old farmer John Dietz, after going down town and buying a new suit of clothes, a pair of shoes, and a hat, returned to his Irvington home at the southeast corner of Arlington Avenue and the Pennsylvania Railroad. He ate supper with his family and appeared in good spirits. Shortly after his family retired, John Dietz took his revolver, placed it to his chest, and discharged the weapon. A large circle of family and friends gathered at the Dietz home three days later for the funeral and then proceeded to Anderson Cemetery for the final commitment.
A third tragic death came to the community on August 28th when 15 year old African-American Stella Middleton died of typhoid fever at her Tuxedo home, 24 N. Gladstone Avenue, a few blocks west of Irvington. Family and friends gathered from near and far to attend Stella's Services and then make their way to her final resting place in Anderson Cemetery.
The void created by these three deaths was keenly felt not only by their families, but throughout Irvington. Gradually, with the passage of time, the pain would ease, but this grieving was shattered in the late evening of Wednesday, September 17th. Julia Middleton, Stella's mother, returned to her home from a prayer meeting and found a note under her door. Opening the note, Mrs. Middleton read that Stella's body had been taken from her grave and could be found at the Central College of Physicians & Surgeons. The note stressed that immediate action must be taken if the body was to be recovered.
The following morning, a family friend went to Anderson Cemetery and discovered that Stella's grave was open, the lid on the coffin had been broken open, and Stella's body was missing; her burial clothes cast aside and covered with dirt. With a search warrant, and in the company of a constable and family members, Mrs. Middleton went to the College where Dr. Joseph C. Alexander, the demonstrator of anatomy, led them to the basement. Opening the door, the room was dimly lit by a single flickering gas jet. A lamp was lit and a ghastly scene presented itself to the seekers. In one corner of the room a makeshift table of boards with ends resting atop barrels could be seen with two covered objects laying on them. Six or eight other barrels were crowded in another corner. Approaching the table, Dr. Alexander drew back a sheet revealing the body of a man; the other sheet was drawn back revealing the body of a young woman. The lamp was brought close, the woman’s head tilted slightly, and tearfully, Mrs. Middleton choked, "It is she. I plaited that hair the day before she died." Because she refused to leave her daughter's side, Dr. Alexander agreed to Mrs. Middleton's pleas to summon an undertaker and pay for Stella's reburial which was done the following morning at Anderson Cemetery, this time with heavy timbers placed atop the coffin.
Late in the evening of the day that Mrs. Middleton had made her sad return to Anderson Cemetery, a darkened carriage pulled up in front of Wesley Gates' home. A figure alit from the rig and went up to the door. When Mr. Gates appeared he was told that a man in the carriage wished to speak to him. Slipping on his shoes, Mr. Gates went down to the carriage and was told by a muffled voice from within the curtained shadows that the grave of Glendore may have been robbed and, if so, the girl's body would be found at the Central College of Physicians & Surgeons. southeast corner of Pennsylvania and South Streets. Stunned by this news, Mr. Gates went out early the following morning and after getting a wagon and tools proceeded to the cemetery with a few friends. Using a shovel; Mr. Gates gently, but forcefully, dug into the soft earth slowly opening his daughter's grave. Reaching the canvass sheet covering the top of the cedar box containing her coffin, he stopped and carefully brushed away the dirt. The canvass still intact and the box was still tight; there was no evidence that the lid had been tampered with. Sighing with relief that his daughter continued in her peaceful eternal rest, Wesley Gates recovered the grave and then returned home. The ghouls who stole Stella Middleton’s body apparently had left Glendore Gates at peace, but other graves at Anderson Cemetery showed evidence of tampering, and the police were notified.
Reports of graves possibly having been robbed at Trader's Point Pleasant Hill Cemetery and other small cemeteries around Marion County soon filled the newspapers as detectives and families made their rounds to the Indianapolis medical colleges that would be starting the winter term in the coming weeks and were quickly filling their pickling vats with “subjects.” When asked about these additional reports of missing bodies. Dr. Alexander said, "No questions are asked as to the identity of the persons that deliver the bodies, or the one to whom the money is paid....Many bodies are brought in that are not paid for....We don't care where they come from."
After a week of investigation, the police, acting on a phone tip, arrested Rufus Cantrell and five other African-Americans for grave robbing. Dr. Alexander, an intern, and the janitor at the Central College of Physicians & Surgeons were also arrested. Cantrell styled himself "king of the ghouls" and freely admitted, while being interrogated, to leading the gang in stealing numerous bodies including that of Glendore Gates. He described in detail how he restored her opened, grave to its original condition, carefully stitching together the tear in the canvas cover over the wood box that covered the coffin and arranging the grave decorations to their original appearance. For his work, Cantrell said that Dr. Alexander had instructed that thirty dollars were to be paid for each corpse delivered "in good condition."
When word of Cantrell's confession reached Irvington, family and friends of Glendore Gates were overcome with anguish arid anxiety. Her brother-in-law led a small group out to Anderson Cemetery where the grave was again gently reopened. The earth was brushed off the canvass sheet covering the cedar box containing the coffin, and again the canvass was found to be intact. The canvass was removed, and the box lid appeared not to have been disturbed. But as a ripple of hope spread among the small group, the few remaining particles of earth were cleared away and the lid was found to be in two pieces. Hope suddenly changed to gasps of anguish as the piece of the lid over the head of the coffin was removed. Dropping to their knees, the party peered into the grave at the white coffin and saw that a panel was slightly ajar. While all held their breath, the panel was lifted revealing the coffin's empty white satin interior. What the ghoul had told was sadly true.
Evert Gates, Glendore's brother, immediately got a warrant, and during the evening of Monday, September 29th, accompanied by two detectives, a relative and a neighbor, he. conducted a search of the Central College of physicians & Surgeons and of the Medical College of Indiana. At the Central College, by the light of a kerosene lamp, the janitor led the party down a narrow flight of stairs to the trash littered, foul- smelling cellar. Passing through a door into another room dimly illuminated by the flickering flame of a gas jet, the searchers found a long row of open barrels filled with pickling solution. During a previous search, the detectives had found that each of the eight barrels contained a body, but now all were empty. Another barrel, however, in a corner of the room was covered with a heavy stone. When the stone was removed, the body of an old woman came into view. Throughout the room, the shrouds and garments, some containing fragments of earth, were evidence of bodies once having been brought into this area. .The detectives also probed the furnace with a poker and found a few; bones. The upper floors of the building were searched, but no. additional bodies were found. After searching other downtown locations and the Medical College of Indiana, only the bodies of five men and one woman, not Glendore, were found.
In the ensuing days, Evert Crates led the small party of family, friends, and detectives in search of Glendore's body at the National Casket Company at West Street and the Canal on reports that an embalming school had recently been established there, and to the "dead house" in Louisville, Kentucky, where cadavers were stored for that city's medical schools on reports that Glendore's body and the bodies of others missing from the Central College of Physicians & Surgeons might be found. The searches, however, were to no avail.
In the pre-dawn hours of Monday, October 13th, the police received a phone call that there were two sacks containing bodies up against the Georgia Street side of the Hibben-Hollweg Building on south Meridian Street. When the police arrived at this location and began their investigation of this grizzly discovery, another report came in of two sacks containing bodies lying in the alley behind the Central College of Physicians & Surgeons, and officers were quickly dispatched to that location. All of the bodies were taken to the morgue and the families of those whose graves had been robbed were notified. Recognition was difficult because of the condition of the bodies, but the Gates family brought in the nurse who had cared for Glendore during her illness and a positive identification was made. While examining Glendore's body, it was discovered that the ghouls had knocked her teeth out stealing the gold fillings, and they had also stolen the rings she was wearing when buried. Glendore Gates was again laid to rest in Anderson Cemetery, and the ordeal for the Gates family was finally over.
Rufus Cantrell appeared to revel in the attention he was receiving in the continuing investigation of the grave robbing. He went with police around the county to various small cemeteries --- Anderson, Mt. Jackson, the German Catholic, Mt. Pleasant, Ebenezer, and others --- pointing out graves that were robbed and describing in detail the methods used. Cantrell said that Dr. Alexander had accompanied the ghouls when they went to Anderson Cemetery to steal the body of John Dietz, but that the grave was not disturbed because "there were so many flowers on the grave." Cantrell also revealed that the body of Henry Cress, one of Irvington's best known residents and a Marion County pioneer, had been taken from its grave in Franklin Township's Ebenezer Cemetery the previous year and sold to the Central College of Physicians & Surgeons.
In February, 1903, Dr. Joseph C. Alexander, demonstrator of anatomy at the Central College of Physicians & Surgeons was brought to trial on charges "of taking, concealing, and buying human corpses.'' After hearing almost two weeks of sensational testimony, the jury deadlocked eight to four for acquittal and was discharged. The prosecutor vowed to re-file the charges if Cantrell would again testify against Dr. Alexander. "The King of the Ghouls,'' Rufus Cantrell, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to three to fourteen. years in the state reformatory at Jeffersonville for "the theft and conspiracy in the theft and disposition of the body of Rose Neidlinger" from Pleasant Hill Cemetery. His accomplice Sam Martin was also tried, convicted, and sentenced to three to ten years in the Indiana Reformatory for "removing from the grave the body of Johanna Stilz" from Ebenezer Lutheran Cemetery. Cantrell said he would not testify against Dr. Alexander at a new trial, and failing to get any of the other ghouls to cooperate, the prosecutor did not proceed with an additional trial. Two of the remaining ghouls plead guilty and received one to three year sentences.
During Dr. Alexander's trial, a letter of dubious origin appeared accusing Cantrell of plotting to steal the body of President Benjamin Harrison from Crown Hill Cemetery and holding it for ransom. Although no other reference is made to this plan, it recalls the plot to steal President Lincoln's body and the actual theft in 1878 of the body of President Harrison's father, John Scott Harrison, from the family cemetery at North Bend, Ohio. After the body was recovered from a Cincinnati medical school, public indignation against medical school ghouls was very strong in Ohio and Indiana which led to legislation making grave robbing a crime. The revelations of the Cantrell gang and the practices of the Central College of Physicians & Surgeons led the 1903 Indiana General Assembly to enact legislation creating the state anatomical board that was empowered to receive and distribute unclaimed bodies from throughout the state to medical schools. The act was "for the promotion of anatomical science and to prevent grave desecration." TRUTH IS SOMETIMES SCARIER THAN FICTION.