An Indianapolis man allegedly broke into the Indiana Medical History Museum and stole the brains of deceased mental patients; he later sold them on eBay.
David Charles, 21, is accused of stealing jars of preserved human tissue from the museum several times this year, the Indianapolis Star reported.
The stolen tissue is from autopsies performed between the 1890s and 1940s at the mental hospital that was once on the same site of the museum, the Associated Press reported.
A San Diego man who bought six of the stolen jars for $600 plus $70 shipping tipped off the authorities when he noticed some suspicious labeling on the items, the Indianapolis Star reported.
Detectives with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department eventually spoke to online seller of the stolen jars, who admitted they had received them from Charles.
In the past, police had investigated several reports of break ins at the museum's storage facilities.
The police had an "eBay middleman" meet Charles (who had stolen 600 jars of human tissue the day before) in a Dairy Queen parking lot, the Indianapolis Star reported. The cops moved in after a transaction was made.
Charles will face "theft, marijuana possession and paraphernalia possession" and possible other charges according to court documents, the Indianapolis Star reported.
"It's horrid anytime a museum collection is robbed," Mary Ellen Hennessey Nottage, the museum's executive director, told the Indianapolis Star. "A museum's mission is to hold these materials as cultural and scientific objects in the public interest. To have that disturbed - to have that broken - is extraordinarily disturbing to those of us in the museum field."
The majority of the stolen material has been returned to the museum.
"He just said he liked to collect odd things," Hennessey said, referring to a conversation she had with the man who purchased the stolen jars.
It is unclear whether or not Charles has hired an attorney, the Associated Press reported.
