David Charles allegedly stole more than 60 jars of brain and other human tissues in October from a warehouse space at the Indiana Medical History Museum. Chicago: A 21-year-old man has been arrested in the US for allegedly stealing brains of dead mental patients from a medical history museum and selling them on an online trading website.
David Charles allegedly stole more than 60 jars of brain and other human tissues in October from a warehouse space at the Indiana Medical History Museum, the Marion County prosecutor's office said in court papers on Thursday. He is accused of breaking into the museum and taking jars of brains and tissue from autopsies performed on patients in the 1890s, CNN reported.
Court documents said some jars were sold on eBay by a middleman, despite a company policy against listing 'humans, the human body, or any human body parts or products'.
A tipster who paid hundreds of dollars on the online auction site helped bring the 'organ entrepreneurism' to an end.
Indianapolis police had investigated several break-ins at the museum's storage facility before a California phone call led police to Charles. Authorities allege that Charles was scheming to sell some of them, according to court documents.
The alleged scheme began to unravel when the executive director of the museum, Mary Ellen Hennessey Nottage, received the call last month from a man in California who said he had purchased 'six jars of brain matter' for USD 600 on the trading site, according to court documents.
The man suspected the jars were stolen when he compared them to others on the museum website. Nottage notified the police.
Charles was arrested on December 16 after authorities organised an undercover sting. He faces charges of theft, marijuana possession and paraphernalia possession, according to court documents.
He is to appear at an Indianapolis court this month in connection with the alleged theft of dozens of jars of preserved human brain tissue valued at about USD 4,800.
Investigators also are looking into the possibility of additional charges, said A J Deer, a spokesman for the Marion County prosecutor's office.
The museum's executive director, in an interview with The Indianapolis Star, expressed dismay that anyone would steal the museum's artifacts.
15 January 2013: 20-year-old cleaner girl in Sweden on Tuesday stole an empty commuter train and drove it straight into an apartment building suffering severe injuries. The young girl appears to have been unable to stop the train once she reached the end of the line in the exclusive suburb of Stockholm Tuesday morning.
17 Dec 2005: Tenant who stole a house - A tenant stole landlord's name - and then proceeded to steal his house. The thief, always claiming to be Mr Hawthorn, managed to remortgage the property for more than £200,000 then waltzed off with the cash.( Representative photo)1 May 2012: 10-tonne bridge stolen in Czech Republic: An old 10-tonne railway bridge was dismantled and stolen in broad daylight in the Czech Republic. The gang reportedly arrived at a depot in Slavkov, in the east of the country, with forged paperwork claiming that the footbridge over the disused railway track had to come down. Scrap metal theft has cost millions to the victims.14 Jan 2012: Thieves dug a 100ft tunnel under a busy car park in an audacious raid on a shop's cash machine. The gang are believed to have spent up to 6 months digging an underground route from a secluded railway embankment to the ATM. They then drilled up through 15 inches of concrete before swiping several thousand pounds from the machine - and escaping back down the tunnel.6 April 2011: Internet service in all of Armenia was cut off for several hours when a 75-year old Georgian woman inadvertently cut the main service line between the two countries. The woman was scavenging for copper to sell as scrap metal when she accidentally cut an underground fibre optic cable with a spade, cutting off all of Armenia’s internet as well as some of Georgia’s own connectivity.12 Dec 2012: Strange food theft - Few men broke into Tri-jardin Farm, about 130 kilometres northeast of Montreal, and made off with 465 tonnes of corn. Owner of the farm arrived to find the lock on the gate missing and his storage silos empty. All that remained were a few kernels on the ground.29 Mar 2012: A stunned homeowner in eastern England woke up to find his entire front lawn missing. Steve Woolnough, 54, said he had no idea why anyone would want to steal the nine-square-metre artificial grass lawn from his yard in Ipswich. Dec 1 2012: Couple of men waltzed into a Victoria's Secret shop in San Diego and waltzed out with about 300 pairs of panties, police said. The shoplifters mixed in with the crowd hunting for alluring Christmas gifts at the busy downtown shopping center and made off with a shopping bag stuffed with the company's trademark panties, which don't take up a lot of room.Nov 18,1994: Keith Bradford stole a condom machine of the wall in the toilet of a pub. Numerous witnesses saw him walking away with the machine so police followed him home and recovered the machine, 48 condoms and 127 quarters.In 2008, a live shark was stolen from a shed in Hampshire. The 2ft long female mottled brown shark - one half of the only breeding pair in the UK - was taken from a garden in Farnborough over a weekend.In July 1990, Los Angeles police broke the case of the Great Manhole Theft Caper when they arrested two culprits who later confessed to stealing 300 manhole covers weighing as much as 300 lbs. each. The Manhole Men were selling the covers for six dollars each to scrap-material dealers.
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