Charlie Chaplin died on Christmas day in 1997, aged 88, in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland.
However, his much deserved “rest in peace” was short-lived. In March 1978, his coffin was dug up and stolen by two grave robbers. They demanded that the Chaplin family pay a ransom of $USD 600,000.
The grave robbers were two unemployed and down-and-out auto mechanics, Roman Wardas and Gantscho Ganev. They hatched their bold plan to finance their dream, to set-up a car repair shop.
After digging up the body and hauling the 135-kilogram oak casket onto a truck they reburied it in a cornfield near the village of Noville. The empty grave sparked a myriad of conspiracy theories. Some believed he’d been taken back to his homeland, the UK. Others thought it was work of souvenir hunters.
Police traced the ransom calls to the Chaplin family to public telephone boxes in Lausanne.
When the story broke in the media, the family and police received several copycat ransom demands. In the end, had to ask the kidnappers to send them a photo so they could verify that they were the genuine criminals.
Police traced the ransom calls to the Chaplin family to public telephone boxes in Lausanne. Today, there are zero public telephone boxes in Lausanne, or perhaps, one in a museum. At the time there were about 200 scattered around the city. Lausanne police patrolled the city boxes, trying desperately to find the criminals. They finally succeeded in arresting them in the middle of a call with the Chaplin family lawyer Jean-Felix Paschoud. It took police 76 days to catch the two men.
The two "masterminds" could not find the coffin in the cornfield. Police had to use metal detectors to locate the metal handles on the casket.
The two "masterminds" could not find the coffin in the cornfield and police had to use metal detectors to locate the metal handles on the casket.
Wardas was sentenced to four and a half years of hard labour, and Ganev received an 18-month suspended sentence. Oona Chaplin later forgave the men after receiving letters of apology.
The duo inspired a French comedy-drama titled La rançon de la gloire (The Price of Fame), released in 2014. The film starred Benoît Poelvoorde and Roschdy Zem and was directed by Xavier Beauvois. It bombed in the cinema.
Chaplin was reburied in Corsier-sur-Vevey in a specially designed concrete topped tomb.
Listen to more: BBC Witness History
Check the vocabulary
ransom - money that is paid to somebody so that they will set free a person who is being kept as a prisoner by them
The kidnappers demanded a ransom of £50 000 from his family.
a ransom demand/note
hatched- to hatch
to create a plan or an idea, especially in secret
Have you been hatching up a deal with her?
Rebel MPs are hatching a secret plot to oust the prime minister.
hauling - to haul
to pull something/somebody with a lot of effort
myriad - extremely large in number
the myriad problems of modern life
copycat crime - criminal acts inspired or heavily influenced by previous crimes that are publicized in news reports or depicted in entertainment media
hard labour - punishment in prison that involves a lot of very hard physical work
He was sentenced to ten years’ hard labour.