Police say gravedigger stole body parts from grave

FITCHBURG, Mass. -- Police say a gravedigger stole body parts including a skull and a thigh bone from broken casket at a church cemetery and took them home as smoking accessories.

"While he was digging a grave, a casket was broken open, so (investigators) believe he took the body parts to make an ashtray and a pipe," Police Lt. Kevin O'Brien told the Sentinel & Enterprise of Fitchburg. He said a police report didn't identify the grave, which was at St. Bernard's Cemetery.

Keith Chartrand, 30, of Fitchburg, also is accused of killing his wife's dog. Police charged him with removing a body from a grave and cruelty to animals.

Officers went to his apartment on Wednesday after Chartrand's wife complained that her husband had killed her dog, then told them she had found the body parts among his belongings.

Fitchburg District Court Judge Arthur Haley III ordered Chartrand held on $50,000 bail at a court hearing on Wednesday where Chartrand told the judge the charge against him was "bogus."

Chartrand's lawyer, Martin Maynard, said his client had been working at the cemetery for more than six months. The attorney did not immediately return a call to The Associated Press on Thursday.

The Rev. Edward Chalmers of St. Bernard's said he believed the remains probably were taken from an older part of the cemetery where many graves did not have vaults. 

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