THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 31, 1996 TAG: 9610310363
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: 66 lines
To this day, no one knows the story behind a corpse found last spring in a sealed, downtown crypt.
The discovery led to a state police investigation and drew the attention of the regional media. It also gave Elizabeth City folks a collective case of the creeps.
Now the remains that created quite a disturbance will finally rest in peace. On Friday, an Order of Burial will be performed for the mystery man who is believed to have been between 35 and 50 years old when he died up to 100 years ago.
The 4:45 p.m. burial is open to the public and will be held at the Episcopal Cemetery off Ehringhaus Street. It will be followed by an All Saint's Day service at 5:15 p.m., rain or shine.
``We just wanted to have a proper burial for him,'' said Ann Hughes, a Christ Episcopal Church member who helped arrange the services.
Hughes is part of a group that is breathing new life into the long languishing Episcopal Cemetery. Until last year, the city-maintained cemetery had served more as a place of recreation than reflection, judging from litter left by lovers, drinkers and drug users.
Many of Elizabeth City's early leaders are buried in the Episcopal Cemetery, including former North Carolina Governor J.B. Ehringhaus.
As part of an ongoing restoration, a brick mason was called in last May to assess structural damage to the J.H. Pool family crypt, built in 1848.
While working, the mason discovered a skull and several bones in a corner of the tomb. None of the 10 coffins in the crypt was missing a skeleton or bones.
At first, observers speculated the man had died violently because of a hole in the skull. But a medical examiner ruled that the hole was caused by decomposition, not a gunshot.
More likely, a grave digger or groundskeeper found the body, put it away for safekeeping and then forgot about it. But many people have wondered aloud how the corpse could have gone undetected for so long. The crypt was not sealed until the 1970s.
``A curator from Raleigh said those bones had been there a long, time,'' said Elizabeth Greenleaf Rumpf, 82, of Elizabeth City.
Rumpf and her son, Russell Melvin Rumpf, are the last local descendants of the family that owns the crypt. The next closest relative is in Richmond.
Rumpf remembers when her father was caretaker of the tomb.
``He used to go in once or twice a year to be sure water wasn't accumulating,'' Rumpf said.
He never noticed a body, she said, though he did have cataracts and may have missed it.
The vault remained open until the early 1970s, when Rumpf's family began to notice property being taken from porches and unlocked homes in town.
There were no plans for anyone else to be buried in the crypt, so the family decided to lock up the place. Rumpf's father kept the key, but after his death it was never found, Rumpf said.
For Friday's service, Dr. Fred Moncla, an obstetrician, is providing the small wooden coffin for the bones, which amount to a skull and a few arm and leg bones. The rest have already turned to dust.
Nothing like it has ever happened here, Hughes said.
``There's been a couple of other graves that, because of the ravages of time, have an opening and you could look in,'' she said. ``But this is the first time that bones have shown up mysteriously.''
Luminaria will line the cemetery during the All Saint's service, and a bagpiper will provide music.
``It should be a really pretty service,'' Hughes said.
KEYWORDS: UNIDENTIFIED BODY by CNB