Jarred brains for sale on eBay sounds like the premise for a modern day horror flick, but it was the real-life story that resulted in the arrest of an Indiana man, reports the New York Daily News.  David Charles, a 21-year-old man from Indianapolis, stole 60 jars of human tissues from the Indiana Medical History Museum.  Shortly thereafter, he listed them on eBay and sold a San Diego man six jars of antique human brains for $600.

When the man received his purchase, he became doubtful of the legality.  All of the jars had labels indicating they were from the Indiana Medical History Museum.  The man contacted the authorities who proceeded to set up a sting operation.  On December 16, the police were waiting in the parking lot of a Dairy Queen.  They had arranged another organ sale with the brain thief.

As planned, the police caught him in the act.  At present, they still do not know what his motives were in stealing the tissues.  He may have just been looking for financial gain, or there may have been a deeper motivation.  Organ and tissue procurements help medical advancements that assist millions of Americans, but it does not appear he had medical or scientific interests at heart.  As of now, Charles has been arrested and charged with theft, marijuana possession, and paraphernalia possession.  Officials are looking into the possibility of bringing additional charges.

According to the Indy Star, the museum’s executive director, in an interview with the paper, expressed dismay that anyone would steal the museum’s artifacts. The organ tissues come from about 2,000 patients whose remains were autopsied from about the 1890s through the 1940s.  The executive director went on to state that the purpose and mission of a museum is to hold these materials as cultural and scientific objects in the public interest.  It is extraordinarily disturbing to those in the museum field to have that disturbed or destroyed.

The Indiana Medical History Museum represents the beginning of scientific psychiatry and modern medicine while the building itself is the oldest surviving pathology facility in the nation and is on the National Register of Historic Places.  Constructed in 1895 and inaugurated in 1896, the nineteen-room Pathological Department Building, as it was then called, is equipped with three clinical laboratories, a photography lab, teaching amphitheatre, autopsy room, and library.  The museum maintains a collection of scientific artifacts from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in a completely authentic setting.