(insects chirping) - [Narrator] On a desolate hill outside the sleepy town of Catawissa is an unusual sight.

(sinister music) It is often shocking to those encountering it for the first time.

Iron cages cover two of the graves, known locally as the hooded graves.

People often ask about the purpose of the cages.

Were they supposed to keep something out or something in?

To the best of my knowledge, Columbia County's hooded graves are the only example of this type of structure in the United States.

The local historical record is silent on the matter.

Intrigued by this unique pair of structures, I set out to solve the mystery, an investigation which took considerable time and led me down some strange paths.

- I've been playing in the graveyard as long as I can remember and started doing some serious gravestone research, talks on gravestones.

For a long time, I would get phone calls from people wanting to know where certain gravestones were, what something on a gravestone might mean, so they would always call the gravestone lady.

That was how people referred to me.

- [Narrator] The hooded graves belonged to two young women who died in June, 1852.

They were Sarah Ann Boone and as Asenath Thomas.

- [Ann] The reason people suggest most often for the cages is that they were to keep animals from digging into the graves.

- [Narrator] Other people suggested a theory often enough for it to deserve consideration.

Were the women vampires?

The idea that the cages were meant to keep the occupants of the graves in, rather than intruders out, is an intriguing one, rather romantic.

- Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I think most people in Catawissa know about it.

I live next to the only hooded cemetery in the United States.

After we moved here, probably the first month or so, I mean, it was kinda creepy at nighttime.

But then, after a while, you just get used to it.

I mean, definitely, I believe in ghosts.

I mean, I've had some experiences myself.

But I mean, it's been really quiet as far as that goes over here.

I mean, I've never really seen anything or heard anything.

I know that there used to be a third cage here, and I think in the '30s it got taken down.

I'm not sure why.

- A newspaper story published in the 1960s states that there was a third cage removed during the 1930s because it had fallen into disrepair.

There was some local folks who rebuilt these cages.

These are not the original cages.

They were in total disrepair.

(string trimmer buzzing) - My cousin was in, visiting the area, and he took pictures of these and sent them to me.

And it got me feeling that it wasn't right and that we should clean these up again.

Glad we did it.

They were pretty well beat up.

- I was working at Andruss Library, Bloomsburg University, where we got a new book called "Body Snatching" by Suzanne Shultz.

She described, but didn't have pictures, of the Scottish mortsafes.

The proverbial light bulb went off, and I said, "That's what the hooded graves are."

(somber music) - [Narrator] Mortsafes, structures intended to prevent theft of a body for use by doctors or medical students who, at the time, had no legal source of cadavers for their work.

So, they stole recently buried corpses from their graves for use in dissection for anatomical instruction and practice of surgical techniques.

There are documented cases of body snatching in rural Pennsylvania within a few years of the erection of the cages on the hooded graves.

Our ancestors regarded dissection with fear and horror.

- It was a terrible fear.

In the 1850s, everyone still believed in a physical, literal bodily resurrection, and if your body was not intact, you wouldn't get into heaven.

- [Narrator] But why Columbia County?

When city officials became watchful, rural cemeteries were prime targets because their remoteness gave a false sense of security.

(somber music) - About 10 years ago, I found an article that they called a grave guard, and it was basically a little cage similar to these.

This is the the one thing that supports the theory that they may actually have been decorative.

But this was 50 years after these cages were built.

- [Narrator] The next logical question is, why weren't there more?

In any case, we are still left to wonder what really happened outside the sleepy little town of Catawissa in 1852.

(trees rustling)