Utah’s ‘Norman Bates’ Wore Corpse’s Clothing, Dug Up 300 Graves

Cemeteries often hold some very dark secrets. Families put faith and trust into the staff members who run and oversee these properties to treat loved ones with respect and care, but that's not always the way burials work out.

I recently visited the Salt Lake City Cemetery, which is one of the largest in the country. My purpose for the trip to the 150-acre plus property was to seek out the headstones of a couple of people that have interesting back stories.

While there, I learned about a very dark, disturbing act that reportedly took place at the cemetery in the 1850s and sixties, and the details of the incidents are like something right out of the movie Psycho.

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A Former Employee Of The Salt Lake City Cemetery Was Reportedly Arrested For Robbing More Than 300 Graves, Wearing Many Of The Deceased People's Clothing

The grave sites at the Salt Lake City Cemetery I past by there to see were those of Matthew Standford Robison and Lily Gray. Robison only lived a short time, and was blind and largely paralyzed his entire life due to birth complications. His father designed a unique tombstone that people from across the country go there to see.

The details surrounding Gray's death are mysterious, according to the Internet, and her headstone reads "Victim of the Beast 666," so, I had to check that out for myself as well.

READ MORE: Heartbroken Utah Dad Design's Late, Handicapped Son's Grave

According to Dead History, the cemetery employed a man named Jean Baptiste in the mid-nineteenth century. After months of unusual reports from families who had loved ones buried there, Baptiste confessed to robbing over 300 graves. He was also found to be in possession of many items of the deceased, including shoes and clothing he reportedly wore in public.

Although Baptiste was never accused of murder, the fact he had these morbid habits of slipping into garments taken off the bodies of dead people, the story is very reminiscent of Norman Bates, the inn keeper in the franchise Psycho.