INDIANAPOLIS (Web Desk) – A young man in United States has been sentenced with one-year prison for breaking into a medical museum and stealing preserved human brains and other tissue that he then sold online.
21-year-old David Charles has been pleaded guilty to six charges including receiving stolen property, and burglary in a Marion County court, Indianapolis, where Magistrate Amy Barbar sentenced him to one year of home detention and two years of probation, county prosecutor spokesman Anthony Deer said.
Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry said that David Charles had pleaded guilty to burglary and had three years of his sentence suspended.
Charles on multiple occasions broke into the Indiana Medical History Museum to steal jars of brains and other human tissue, according to Marion County prosecutor’s office.
The museum is a former hospital for the insane founded in 1848 and later converted into a museum with an autopsy room and anatomical museum that displays preserved specimens, mostly brains, organised by pathology.
Charles was arrested in December 2013 after a San Diego man who bought six jars of brain material for $600 on eBay alerted police, according to court documents. Many of the items Charles sold were recovered when the San Diego man matched the items he bought to those stolen from the museum based on research he did online, according to court documents.
Investigators were able to identify Charles partly because he left behind in the museum a piece of paper with his bloody fingerprint on it, according to court documents. They recovered 80 jars of human tissue, according to court documents.
Fox 59 reported that Charles tried to sell the tissue through his Facebook page. In one status update, dated Oct. 14, 2013, Charles wrote ” yo I got a bunch of human brains in jars for sale [hit me up] for details u [sic] know u [sic] want one for Halloween.”
Charles, who was ordered to stay away for the museum, also stole an EKG machine, about 10 scopes, a baby scale and other miscellaneous historical items from the museum, Deer said.
As part of Charles’ sentence, he is required to obtain a high school diploma or GED and will spend one year on home detention and two years on probation.
