West Virginia § 61-8-14 Disinterment or displacement of dead body or part thereof; damage to cemetery or graveyard; penalties; damages in civil action

West Virginia Statutes

§ 61-8-14 — Disinterment or displacement of dead body or part thereof; damage to cemetery or graveyard; penalties; damages in civil action

West Virginia § 61-8-14

Ch. 61CRIMES AND THEIR PUNISHMENT

Art. 8CRIMES AGAINST CHASTITY, MORALITY AND DECENCY

This text of West Virginia § 61-8-14 (Disinterment or displacement of dead body or part thereof; damage to cemetery or graveyard; penalties; damages in civil action) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering West Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

W. Va. Code § 61-8-14 (2026).

Text

(a)Any person who unlawfully and intentionally disinters or displaces a dead human body, or any part of a dead human body, placed or deposited in any vault, mausoleum or any temporary or permanent burial place, removes personal effects of the decedent removes or damages caskets, surrounds, outer burial containers, or any other device used in making the original burial; transports unlawfully removed human remains from the cemetery; or knowingly receives unlawfully removed human remains from the cemetery is guilty of a felony, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be confined in a state correctional facility for a determinate sentence of not more than five years.

(b)(1) Any person who intentionally desecrates any tomb, plot, monument, memorial, or marker in a cemetery, or any gate, door, fen

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(a) Any person who unlawfully and intentionally disinters or displaces a dead human body, or any part of a dead human body, placed or deposited in any vault, mausoleum or any temporary or permanent burial place, removes personal effects of the decedent removes or damages caskets, surrounds, outer burial containers, or any other device used in making the original burial; transports unlawfully removed human remains from the cemetery; or knowingly receives unlawfully removed human remains from the cemetery is guilty of a felony, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be confined in a state correctional facility for a determinate sentence of not more than five years.

(b)(1) Any person who intentionally desecrates any tomb, plot, monument, memorial, or marker in a cemetery, or any gate, door, fence, wall, post, or railing, or any enclosure for the protection of a cemetery or any property in a cemetery, graveyard, mausoleum or other designated human burial site is guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $2,000, or confined in jail not more than one year, or both fined and confined.

(2) Any person who intentionally and without legal right destroys, cuts, breaks, removes, or injures any building, statuary, ornamentation, landscape contents, including a tree, shrub, flower, or plant, within the limits of a cemetery, is guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $2,000, or confined in jail not more than one year, or both fined and confined.

(3) For the purposes of this subsection, “desecrate” means destroying, cutting, mutilating, effacing, injuring, tearing down, removing, defacing, damaging or otherwise physically mistreating in a way that a reasonable person knows will outrage the sensibilities of persons likely to observe or discover his or her actions.