By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, October 18, 1990
The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NEWS | Page B01
The graveyard with a single plot lies amid industrial buildings on Washington Avenue in Carlstadt, obscured by an overgrowth of weeds. But vandals managed to find the grave and dig it up Tuesday night.
On Wednesday, Carlstadt Detective Sgt. Michael Barbire said the vandalism was the work of a satanic cult the second time since last year that a grave has been desecrated by a cult. Last year, the gravesite of Thomas Fransen Outwater, one of North Jersey’s pioneer settlers, was torn up, and his skull was removed. Outwater’s grave is about 40 feet from the site of Wednesday’s damage.
Barbire said a worker in a nearby factory called police to report the vandalism at the plot, where a man named Henry Gordes was buried at least 100 years ago.
The hole “only goes down about four or five feet this time,” Barbire said. “As far as we could tell, we don’t think they went down deep enough to disturb the remains. Whether they were scared off or not, we don’t know. “
Barbire said only Gordes name was visible on the tombstone and that police would not dig up the stone to determine the date of his death or burial.
More disturbing to police was an inverted cross found stuck in the mound of sand at the head of the hole, Barbire said. The way the cross was embedded in the mound was indicative of a satanic ritual, he said.
The cemetery plot is on a strip of land owned by the Third Reformed Church of Hackensack. The Rev. Paul Janssen, pastor of the church, said he was unaware of the existence of the grave.
Last year, in the nearby Outwater Cemetery, vandals dug up the graves of Outwater and his wife and took his skull. His scattered bones were later reassembled at the Carlstadt Police Department and reburied during a ceremony in the town in July.
Caption: COLOR PHOTO – DANIELLE P. RICHARDS / THE RECORD – Carlstadt Police Detective Sgt. Michael Barbire at a gravesite that is believed to have been dug up by members of a satanic cult on Tuesday night.
ID: 17320020 | Copyright © 1990, The Record (New Jersey)
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