Halloween desecration of St Matthews tomb, plus video, shocks church minister

While Halloween is normally celebrated with some fun and respect, the damage to a family tomb at Windsor’s historic St Matthews Anglican Church on Friday – and a video from a paranormal group showing the damaged tomb – has caused sadness and despair.

“We had trick or treaters Friday come here at night. Someone broke into a family crypt – it was levered open with an iron bar from the cemetery – and exposed five coffins and human bones,” says Reverend Chris Jones.

“A paranormal group then did a Halloween livestream of the grave they happened to find open.

“This happened the night before we had a funeral here for an 18-year-old who died in a car accident locally. There were 1000 people here for that on Saturday, and there’s this damaged crypt.”

Windsor Police have investigated and attempted to find fingerprints, but Rev Jones said that was unsuccessful.

“A 300kg piece of sandstone was broken and collapsed into the crypt,” he says.

“It has squashed one of the coffins, which must be lead. The police took the metal bar but couldn’t get a fingerprint.”

Rev Jones says he can barely believe the level of disrespect and he’s calling on the community to report to the police if they have any ideas who is responsible for the sacrilege.

“The complete disrespect shown to enter a grave like this,” Rev Jones says.

“If the livestreamers didn’t break into the crypt it was still a very despicable thing they did to put it on YouTube before the church was advised of the damage.

“And is it too big a coincidence that this has happened at Halloween? I think not.”

The paranormal group even say on their video they will return to the cemetery.

“St Matthews wants people to know that they refuse permission to paranormal groups to operate onsite. If people are found doing such activities it will be regarded as criminal trespass,” said Rev Jones.

It’s not only the damage, the sacrilege, the total disrespect, it’s the repair of the tomb which will be both costly and hard to do, given the large slab of sandstone which needs replacing.

“Many of the graves are very old and there are no known living relatives so repairs will have to be borne by the Church.

“St Matthews would be glad if there was someone in the family or community who was able to help them recover the sandstone slab from the crypt and seal with a repaired stone or a new piece of sandstone. This sort of malicious damage is not covered by insurance.

“If anyone can help us repair the tomb we’d like to hear from them.”

And Rev Jones has put out a plea to the community.

“Someone has committed a crime breaking open a vault. Anybody with any information, please speak to Windsor Police.”

We’ve decided not to include pictures of the inside of the damaged tomb out of respect and also as they may be distressing for some readers.

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