The dead don't always rest in peace.

Sometimes, they are dug up for art projects.

In October 1988, Kevin McQuain was a Syracuse University art student who liked to party in Oakwood Cemetery. One night, he encountered a group of local metalheads who showed him a mausoleum with body parts scattered on the floor.

On a dare, McQuain entered the mausoleum and stole the skull of John J. Crouse, who served as mayor of Syracuse in 1876. Crouse's family played a prominent role in Syracuse history and helped in the founding of Oakwood Cemetery. McQuain carried Crouse's skull back to his dorm in a paper bag.

The next day, he started to boil the skull in his dorm's kitchen, attempting to remove bits of rotted flesh; he planned to utilize it in his sculpture studies.

But another student smelled the boiling skull's foul odor and alerted authorities. McQuain was charged with body stealing, a felony under the State Public Health Law.

Initially, McQuain claimed to have found the skull under a bush in the cemetery, He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 200 hours of community service.

McQuain left Syracuse a year later, but found it hard to escape the past. The skull stealing incident had been covered by every major media outlet, including NPR and The New York Times.

It even earned him a nickname, Skully, which he named his own Gothabilly record label after, Skully Records.