Nineteen-year-old John P. McMurray wanted to "do something so freaky, people wouldn't believe it." As Sheriff Detective Dean Miller points out, "He succeeded."

An employee at a Preble County, Florida cemetery, McMurray used a steak knife to steal a head off a corpse in a mausoleum. Then he carried it home and propped it up for display on a coffee mug he'd made himself in shop class. McMurray said he'd been bandying about the stolen-head idea for months.

While police were stumped in their investigation, they got lucky after arresting John for shoplifting. The night he was being booked on those charges, McMurray was wearing the same boots he'd worn in the crypt. Police were able to match them with a print found in the mausoleum. McMurray and two accomplices face various felony charges, including gross abuse of a corpse. The head, which McMurray later tossed off a bridge, has not been found.

» Scott Saxon