"They just wanted to know what dead people looked like," explained the friend of three Patchogue, NY, teens who took their shovels to the Cedar Grove Cemetery and dug up three of its permanent residents. Then two of the boys brought their new pals to a friend’s house and, according to one witness, helped the skeletons don costumes.

Eventually the dead made for poor companionship, and their remains were dumped in a drainage conduit. That could have been the end of it, but one of the boys felt compelled to tell his classmates about the escapade. A teacher overheard him and called the police. Two were charged with cemetery desecration, body theft and opening graves, while one, chauffeur to the dead, was charged with receiving a stolen body. :

» Scott Saxon