Nuns digging up sister's remains find body intact four years after death (2024)

A small rural town in Missouri has received an influx of visitors this week after the body of a deceased nun was found with no signs of visible decay four years after being buried.

Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster was founder of the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of the Apostles, in Gower, Missouri. She died in May 2019. Four years later, the sisters decided to move her remains to lie underneath the altar in the convent's chapel. However, when they opened her coffin, the sisters were shocked by what they found.

"We were told by cemetery personnel to expect just bones in the conditions, as Sister Wilhelmina was buried without embalming and in a simple wood coffin," one of the sisters, who asked to be anonymous, told Newsweek.

There are several hundred documented cases of incorruptible corpses in the Catholic Church. This incorruptibility is a sign of holiness—that the body's owner was too pure to undergo the usual putrefaction process, according to Catholic tradition.

"We went out to her grave to say the rosary after the sisters finished the digging," the sister said. "Mother Abbess Cecilia looked through the crack made in the coffin, which very clearly occurred soon after her burial. She saw a totally intact foot with the sock on, looking just like it did when we had buried her. She could not help but scream with joy."

Once the lid had been removed, it became clear, according to the sister, that Lancaster's body was almost entirely unchanged. "We took turns feeling the still-socked feet, very damp, but all there," the sister said. "The dirt that fell in early on had pushed down on her facial features, especially the right eye, so we did place a wax mask over it. But her eyelashes, hair, eyebrows, nose and lips were all present, her mouth just about to smile."

The sister continued: "After we cleaned off the mold and mildew because of the wet conditions in the coffin, it looked like we had just put [the habit] on her that day. This was a testament to her love for the sisterhood and what she was passing down to us who followed her."

Lancaster's story has been widely shared on social media, with many describing it as a "miracle in Missouri." But what normally happens to a body after it is buried?

"This can vary a lot, depending on the type of coffin," Nicholas Passalacqua told Newsweek. He is an associate professor and director of forensic anthropology at Western Carolina University. "Today, most coffins are fancy and made out of wood, so they will decompose over time, but this will take many years."

The speed of decomposition is greatly dependent on the burial environment as well as the burial method. "The primary factor that affects the rate of decomposition is temperature," Passalacqua said. "The warmer it is, the more active bacteria and enzymes will be and also the more active insect scavengers will be because their metabolisms are correlated to ambient temperature.

"If the remains have been treated with chemicals, then this will drastically slow the decomposition process," Passalacqua said. "Similarly, if the body is in an oxygen-deprived environment, then this will significantly slow decomposition."

It is difficult to say how often and for how long bodies can remain in a semi-preserved state underground. Passalacqua said, "Bodies are rarely exhumed after burial, but there are many famous cases of well-preserved human remains.

"Not just things like Egyptian mummies, which were intentionally preserved, but also things like the bog bodies of Europe," he continued. "They were very well preserved for thousands of years because they were in environments with low oxygen that restricted bacterial growth and access of the remains to scavengers."

Whether Lancaster's body would have remained in this incorrupt state because of natural causes is unclear.

"In general, when we bury a body at our human decomposition facility, we expect it will take roughly five years for the body to become skeletonized," Passalacqua said. "That is without a coffin or any other container or wrapping surrounding the remains. So for this body, which was buried in a coffin, I personally don't find it too surprising that the remains are well preserved after only four years."

Lancaster can be visited at the abbey until May 29, when her remains will be moved to the shrine.