Instances of burglars robbing and snatching things from people in order to purchase their required stuff are common news, but a very unusual case has come to light in the United Kingdom in which a drug addict dug up graves to extract jewelry.
According to the BBC, Wayne Joselyn, a 43-year-old drug addict and habitual criminal, dug up Kell and Maud Goodwin's graves because he thought they held priceless jewelry.
According to testimony given at Sheffield Crown Court, he had heard a "bizarre rumour" that the burial contained either jewellery or a rifle. Joselyn pleaded guilty to a charge of committing a public disturbance last month.
Judge Jeremy Richardson KC, the Recorder of Sheffield, told Joselyn he had caused "immense anguish and upset to the family of Mrs. and Mr. Goodwin."
"You have said there was a bizarre rumour that jewellery or a firearm had been buried in the grave. You were utterly divorced from reality. There is no evidence to suggest that was true. It was almost certainly a figment of your drug-addled brain," he said.
Joselyn was sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court to a further 15 months in jail to run consecutively to the sentence he is already serving, having previously pleaded guilty to a count of outraging public decency and common law and a charge of criminal damage.
"I have never come across a case like this," said Detective Inspector Mark Cockayne, who led the investigation.
"The incident came in, and when the enormity of it became apparent later that same day, we sought advice," he added.
"He had previously been involved in a homicide investigation in which a person had to be exhumed. We had to find surviving relatives quickly, and they were understandably deeply distressed by this. We had real public consternation because people were coming to the cemetery to see their own relatives, and when they'd see the police there, they were terrified something had happened to their loved ones' grave."
"We'd have cars stopping abruptly in the street and people getting out and trying to run in and see what was going on. The team understood how hard it must have been for people."
