Although one's grave is supposed to be a sacrosanct place where the departed can rest in peace, some unfortunate individuals have found their eternal slumber disrupted by nefarious body snatchers!
YouTube user Dark5 have put together a video detailing five cases where a person's remains were removed by thieves hoping to profit from their macabre crime or study the bodies in the name of science.
Among the offerings is the story of billionaire Alexander Stewart, who passed away in 1876.
Two years after his demise, the retail magnate's body was stolen from its grave and held for ransom by a group of thieves hoping to leverage the remains for a piece of his estate.
However they apparently overestimated the value of his body or how desperate his family would be to reclaim it.
After an incredible two years of negotiating, the thieves settled on a mere $20,000 after Stewart's heirs rebuffed their demand for a whopping $250,000.
Perhaps the most infamous case of body snatching was one that was, thankfully, thwarted by the secret service.
In 1876, the agency became aware of a plot by Chicago criminals to steal Abraham Lincoln's body and use it to procure a massive ransom and pardons for their fellow ne'er-do-wells.
Fortunately, their scheme was stopped in the middle of the heist as authorities caught the would-be body snatchers struggling to remove Lincoln's onerous coffin.
Other tales featured in the video include a riot which broke out in 1788 after it was revealed that doctors were stealing bodies to study anatomy and a similar case of medical students looting the tomb of a US congressman in 1878.
Check out the complete video for more on this unsettling and strange aspect of true crime history.
Source: YouTube