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People Steal Bones from Holt Cemetery, Apparently

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Look, we all have spells to do but let's not desecrate New Orleans cemeteries in the process. This weekend a screen-grabbed Facebook post, in which a user known as "Ender Darling" asks if anyone would be interested in purchasing human bones they found at Holt Cemetery, was shared more than 200 times. The post stoked a lot of outrage, but it turns out cemetery bone theft is not uncommon.

In the post, "Ender" describes how when it rains, bones wash up at the in-ground cemetery on City Park Avenue, and they collect them for "curse work" and "general spells." They say human bones are easier to work with because they can better "relate and work with the energy they carry," and they would be happy to ship these real human bones to any interested parties. Ender Darling's original post is either private or has since been deleted, because it doesn't appear on their public Facebook page (Editor's note: see the comments for clarification on this).

The shocked reaction on Facebook prompted WWL to look into the matter, and Save Our Cemeteries president Adam Stevenson says this is a common problem, especially at Holt:

"Unfortunately I would love to say that my reaction would be, I can't believe something like this would happen, but unfortunately we see this far too often with a casual regard to such things ... The remains break down quickly and there is a lot of turnover in [Holt Cemetery]."Maybe it's time think of other ways to source your spell bones that doesn't involve the remains of someone's relatives.

Editor's note: an earlier version of this post refers to "Ender Darling" using female pronouns. After emails saying Ender prefers to be referred to by gender-neutral pronouns, we've updated the post.

· Attorney general investigates bone thefts at cemetery [WWL]
· 10 Stunning New Orleans Cemeteries You Don't Want To Miss [Curbed NOLA]