Graverobbers who used skull as ashtray jailed

Four men who broke into a Wellington cemetery and stole a baby's skull were jailed yesterday.

Lachlan Michael Holland, 18, Denis Charles McCarrison, 21, Allan Campbell Hazelton, 18, and Harlen James Wright, 20, all pleaded guilty to two charges of burglary and one of interfering with human remains.

Hazelton also pleaded guilty to wilful damage and Holland to theft and a second charge of interfering with human remains.

The Wellington District Court heard how Holland, Wright and Hazelton plotted to dig up a baby's skull from Karori cemetery after an evening of drinking and listening to heavy-metal music on October 11.

That night Holland spent half an hour trying unsuccessfully to break into a concrete crypt. He returned to Hazelton's flat with a marble ornament from a gravestone.

The three returned to the cemetery six days later with McCarrison. This time they brought a spade and a hacksaw.

Hazelton kept lookout as the others broke into two 100-year-old concrete vaults in the oldest part of the cemetery. They used the hacksaw to cut the padlock from the steel door of one, and kicked the other's door off its rusted hinges.

Inside one of the vaults, which housed eight bodies, Holland sifted through an urn of human ashes with his hand.

He looked for something to steal and later took a ceramic cross.

Inside the second vault the men found a tiny coffin belonging to a baby who died in 1924, aged only 30 hours. (His identity has been suppressed.)

The wooden coffin collapsed when it was lifted, but the men carried the body in its coffin-shaped lead lining.

Back at Hazelton's flat they cut a 10cm-diameter section from the crown of the baby's skull and removed part of its jawbone.

Later, when police went to one of the men's flats with a search warrant they found the skull section full of cigarette butts. It had been used as an ashtray.

Holland also told police he tied the piece of jawbone to a strip of leather and used it as a necklace.

It was apparently lost during a fight, and has not been found.

Officers later seized a diary in which Wright had written: "We 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 cant believe we did it."

The men decided to discard the rest of the body. They wrapped the lead lining in plastic bags and threw it into Wellington Harbour near Greta Point.

The following night Holland stole a ceramic angel from a grave.

A few days later a man walking his dog through the cemetery noticed two vaults had been vandalised. The sexton did an inventory of the bodies and realised the baby's coffin was missing.

Information from the public led police to a flat in Kingston where they found the skull, the angel, a cross with flowers and a marble decoration from a gravestone.

Holland, who police believe was the ring-leader, could not offer any explanation for his actions, other than that he was curious.

Of the grave robbery, Wright wrote in his diary: "I do not know why we did this. I am deranged. Today has been terrible and we have earned backstage tickets to hell."

Yesterday Wellington District Court Judge Craig Thompson said imprisonment could not be avoided. Suspended sentences or home detention would be inappropriate.

He said Holland had to be seen as the primary mover in the enterprise. He sentenced him to a year's jail. McCarrison and Wright were sentenced to jail for six months and all three were ordered to pay $516 in reparation.

Hazelton was sentenced to nine months' jail and ordered to pay $6000 towards damage done to gravestones several nights before the group broke into the vaults.

All defence counsel said their clients had been affected by the publicity and were remorseful.

- STAFF REPORTER, NZPA