Family Reacts To Body Theft From Pleasantville Mausoleum - Philadelphia News, Weather and Sports from WTXF FOX 29

Paula Spinelli-Lafollett has fond memories of her deceased grandmother, as she looks at a picture of them at her college graduation. But now she's experiencing a different feeling.

"I've been up for the last couple of days. My grandmother is haunting me, like, 'Find who did this,'" says Paula.

"I find it absolutely incredible that anyone could compromise a grave, someone's final resting place," says with an emotional numbness. Paula is talking about the family's now broken mausoleum at the Atlantic City Cemetery in Pleasantville. Someone cracked and hammered through it and took the remains of Paula's grandmother, Pauline Spinelli, who died at 98 years old. That was 16 years ago.

Paula says, "Whoever has her body I can't imagine what they're doing with it."

Paula's husband says their grandmother's body had deteriorated to bones which leads him to think one thing.

"The probability that it was for use by a religious cult based on some research we've done is pretty strong. Fortunately police are checking it out," says Gary Lafollett.

Other family members say if it's true, it's simply sick.

"For somebody to pick her out of that box, put her in a car and take her away with them you have some sick people out there," says grandson Rocco Spinelli.

The mausoleum housed Pauline and four other family members, many of them her children.

The family says thieves took everything including the clothes she had on and earrings, the only jewelry she was buried in. The only thing left in the casket was the blanket once draped over her.