ST. LOUIS COUNTY — Six bronze mausoleum doors have been stolen from Mount Sinai Cemetery, the area’s oldest Jewish cemetery, police said this week.
Someone noticed the missing doors Feb. 2, Investigators do not know when the thefts happened.
St. Louis County police are searching for six bronze mausoleum doors that were stolen from Mount Sinai Cemetery, the area’s oldest extant Jewish cemetery. The doors pictured were not stolen but were released as an example of what the stolen doors look like.
The doors are believed to be between 200 and 500 pounds each and are described as “priceless,†police said.
The cemetery, in the 8300 block of Gravois Road, was established in 1850, but its oldest known remains — Emilie Straus, who died at just 6 months old — date back to 1838.
Nearly 12,000 people are buried there. Among them were leaders in business, medicine and philanthropy.
The cemetery is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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Its executive director, Don Meissner, told the Post-Dispatch he’s holding out hope that the doors are returned intact.
“To me, it just couldn’t be more reprehensible,†he said. “And these doors are really like works of art, and all (the thieves) are going to do is melt them down. It’s like if someone were to take a Picasso from the art museum and use it as a placemat or just tear it into strips. It’s just the lowest kind of crime.â€
Meissner said he’s worked for the cemetery for seven years and in that time the property has had “remarkably little, next to nothing, happen.†He said the community is respectful, their neighbors are friendly and cemetery workers are close to police.
Anyone with information is urged to contact Officer Marcus Bechtold at mbechtold@stlouiscountymo.gov or call the Affton Southwest Precinct at 314-615-4266.
Flowers grow between gravestones at New Mount Sinai Cemetery in St. Louis County on March 13, 2024.
Carol Levitt, left, a retired teacher from Maryland Heights, came to select her plot at New Mount Sinai Cemetery in St. Louis County on Wednesday, March 13, 2024, and afterward walked through the grounds with the cemetery's executive director, Donald Meissner, to see where his family is buried. "It was about time that I bought my plot," Levitt said. Photo by Allie Schallert, aschallert@post-dispatch.com
Post-Dispatch photographers capture hundreds of thousands of images each year. Take a look at some from January 2025. Video edited by Jenna Jones.
