Grave Markers

Elaborate grave markers and ornate tombstones from around the world. Look at the pictures and read the creepy stories behind them. The skeletons in the photo below are not actually on a tombstone. It is a statue called “Skeletons in Love” from Nong Khai sculpture park in Thailand.

1. The Angel of Death

The Angel of Death Victorious is seated on the marble gravestone of Francis Haserot in Lake View Cemetery. It is often called The Haserot Angel. Due to an effect of weathering and erosion on the bronze, the statue appears to be weeping black tears at all times.

2. Hands of the Killer

This is the grave of a little boy named Italino Lacomelli, who was murdered on the 16 August 1925. It is located in Staglieno Cemetery in Genoa, Italy. He was only five years old and he was playing with his hoop in the public garden when he was killed by a madman. The monument was designed by famous Italian sculptor Genovese Adolph Luciarini and it represents the little boy playing happily, absolutely unaware of the hands of the killer reaching out to snatch his life away. His mother and father were later buried in the same grave.

3. The Black Angel

This eerie Black Angel statue stands in Iowa City cemetery over the grave of Theresa and Nicholas Feldevert. Over the years, the angel turned darker and darker, a greenish black patina effect that made the statue creepier and creepier. According to legend, if you touch or kiss the statue, you will be struck dead.

Read more about the Black Angel here.

4. Teletubbies Grave

This disturbing headstone lies over the grave of a child in Hampstead Cemetery, London, UK. The sad inscription reads: “Our dreams lie buried here.”

5. The Weeping Woman

The Weeping Woman tomb is in Riverside Cemetery. She is the source of many urban legend and spooky tales. Some say that during a full moon, she stands and walks through the graveyard, weeping over the conflict in the North & South. Others have claimed to see her hands move and have photographed them in different positions. She’s been known to tear people’s clothes, trip them and pull on their hair.

6. Death Masks

These Death Masks are from Mt. Nebo Cemetary in Clarke County, Alabama. They were made by Isaac Nettles. The stone marks the burial site of his wife, Korea Nettles and bears the faces of their three daughters: Pauline, Marie and Clara. No one is sure why or how Nettles created the stones, but locals say he made impressions by pressing their faces into wet sand and he used concrete and wire to create the masks. In an odd twist, Isaac Nettles himself was buried in an unmarked grave.

7. Stairway Grave

Florence Irene Ford died at the age of 10 in 1871. Her mother was so devastated that she had her child’s coffin and tomb constructed with a glass window at the head. Next to the burial site she had cement stairs built that led down to the window, covered by a metal door. That way, the grieving mother could visit her child whenever she wanted. They say she went there every time there was a storm, because her daughter was scared of thunder. In 1950, the glass wall was covered up with concrete to protect it from vandalism.

8. Georges Rodenbach

Georges Rodenbach was a Belgian writer who died in 1898. His tomb in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, France shows him busting out of the grave with a rose in his hand, like some sort of crazed romantic zombie. Over the years, the bronze figure became oxidized, giving it that greeny-blue fresh zombie look.

9. Eternal Silence

This creepy statue marks the burial site of Dexter Graves. It is located in Graceland Cemetery in Chicago Illinois. Locals call it The Statue of Death. The sculpture is actually named “Eternal Silence” and it was created by Lorado Taft. The figure was once black in color but over the years, the black has mostly worn away, exposing the green, oxidized metal beneath. The face still remains darkened and it looks menacing, hidden in the figure’s robe. According to legend, if you look directly into the face of the statue, you will get a glimpse of your own death.

10. Inez Clarke

Graceland Cemetery has another grave that is said to be haunted. This is the grave of Inez Clarke, a six-year old girl who was struck by lightning in the late 1800s while on a picnic with her mother and father. The distraught parents commissioned a life-size statue of the girl to be placed on her grave.

According to local legend, the girl haunts the cemetery and sometimes, her statue will disappear from the box. A night watchman who was making his rounds during a storm, came across Inez’s grave and saw that the box was empty. He fled, never to return. The next morning, the statue of the little girl was back in its usual place. Others claim they have caught brief glimpses of a small child in 19th-century dress wandering through the cemetery.

11. The Dollhouse Grave

Nadine Earles was a 4-year old girl who died just before Christmas in 1933. According to locals, Nadine wanted a dollhouse for Christmas that year. As a way of giving her the dollhouse she never got, the family built this amazing dollhouse at her grave. They filled it with her toys and personal belongings.

12. Thomas Gooding

This is the tomb of Thomas Gooding who died around 1600. It is located in Norwich Cathedral in Norfolk, England and locals call it “The Skeleton”. Thomas Gooding wanted to be buried standing upright, so he would be the first to get into heaven on Judgement Day. The inscription on the skeleton reads:

All you that do this place pass by,
Remember death, for you will die.
As you are now, even so was I
And as I am so shall you be.
Thomas Gooding here do stay
Waiting for God’s judgement day.

13. The Agee Children

William N. Agee and Nancy Ellar Christian Agee had two sons die very young. One son was stillborn about 1910. The other son, Guffrey died in 1914, when he was about two years old. Their grandfather, William N. Christian, built two little houses over the graves to protect them. He kept a split bottom chair inside the largest house. Every day he would walk the two miles up the hill to the cemetery, take out his chair, sit and whittle to “be with the babies” until evening.

14. The Morrison Brothers

This unusual grave monument in Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri is for the two Morrison brothers. The boys were both disabled. One was in a wheelchair and the other was confined to his crib.

15. Grieving Figure

This grieving figure can be found in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.

16. Charles jacob Affelder

This strange stone monument marks the grave of Charles Jacob Affelder in Chesterton Cemetery in Indiana. Charles was a ham radio enthusiast which is why the figure is clutching a radio and a microphone.