Cops: Burglar Sold Stolen Brains on eBay

He allegedly broke into medical history museum many times
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 2, 2014 12:38 AM CST
Cops: Burglar Sold Stolen Brains on eBay
The going rate for brains on eBay is around $100 a jar, apparently.   (Shutterstock)

Lots of brains were stolen in Indianapolis, but no zombies involved: Police say a 21-year-old man broke into the city's Medical History Museum multiple times to steal the preserved brains of mental patients, which he sold on eBay. The brain burglar was arrested following a sting operation set up after a San Diego man paid $600 for six jars of brains and called the museum when he noticed the labels on the jars and suspected they had been stolen.

The stolen organs came from patients autopsied between the 1890s and the 1940s. "It's horrid anytime a museum collection is robbed," the museum's director tells 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 brain buyer who tipped off police "just said he liked to collect odd things," she says. (More strange stuff stories.)

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