April 17, 2025 • 40 mins
Investigators get a call about a woman selling human bones on Facebook Marketplace in December 2023. An investigation begins right away, and it doesn't take long for police to verify the information they received. Kymberlee Schopper, 52, is arrested for selling human bones on Facebook marketplace as well as out of her curio shop in Volusia County Florida. Schopper has been advertising items and law enforcement has purchased multiple bones from the store and had them verified. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack discuss the website linked to the store run by Kymberlee Schopper, Wicked Wonderland, and the many different signs that point to practices of those who follow the left-hand path. Investigators said they found the following human remains for sale on the store’s website: Two human skull fragments — $90 A human clavicle and scapula — $90 A human rib — $35 A human vertebrae — $35 A partial human skull — $600. Kymberlee Schopper is facing charges of trading in human tissue and the sale of verified human bones out of her curio shop in Orange City, Florida
Transcribe Highlights0:00 - Intro
4:12 - Forensic studies at JSU
9:35 - Woman in Colorado sent to prison for selling body parts
14:05 - Human Bones being sold in store
19:15 - Owner says she doesn't know it is illegal
24:22- Why is store using dot ORG for domain
29:50 - Grave robbers in India
33:20 - Forensic Anthropologist located in Florida
38:10 - Are bones being used in Religious exorcise
40:31 - Outro
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Body bus, But Joseph's gotten more. Let me throw something
out there to you. If you had a chance to
once again hold in your arms that person that you
love most on this earth that has now passed on,
(00:25):
would you do it? What price would you pay? Would
you drop a million bucks? If you had it? Half
a mil and I mean to really sit down and
hold them, to maybe look at them one more time,
maybe have a conversation. Would you do that? I know
(00:49):
for me personally, the person I would want to bring
back into my life is my grandmother. I love that woman,
think about her every day. But what if I told
you it could cost you, I don't know, thirty five bucks,
(01:10):
ninety bucks, six hundred, what say you? Well? In this
case that we're going to talk about today, we're not
talking about holding the reanimated remains of someone that you loved.
We're talking about an anatomical element of someone that was
(01:34):
once loved by someone else. We're going to explore a
case that popped onto our radar in just these last
few days about a person who is selling elements of
human remains down in Florida. Joining you from the beautiful
(01:58):
campus of Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama. I'm Joseph
Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks. Hey, Dave, speaking of
the jack State. Guess what.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
I'm guessing, go for it.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
We just got approved yesterday by the Board of Trustees
for our master's degree in investigative forensics. It's been a
long time coming after committee. Well, it means that you're
going to be able to come here and do graduate
research work in the areas of trace evidence, the areas
(02:44):
of toxicology, crim seene investigation, and of course my favorite,
personal favorite is going to be medical legal death investigation
as well as cold case. So it's a big deal.
It's going to be the first program of its type
in our particular region of the country. And we've been
(03:05):
around as a forensics institution since about nineteen seventy four,
so we predate a lot of these Johnny Come latelys
that you see that are out there. We've been doing
this for a while. But hey, you know what, there's
one other element that gets added to this as well, Dave,
I am going to have a cadaver lab. I'm going
(03:25):
to have a cadaver lab here on campus where we
will have human remains that we will be doing examinations
of in the medical legal courses that we teach here,
and we're going to be teaching some human anatomy obviously,
what goes into an autopsy and how to collect evidence
off of human remains. How cool is that?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
That's pretty amazing, you know, from the get go, expanding
what you already have. You've built up such a respected
program nationwide and internationally. Actually that I'm glad that it's
I'm glad they're doing that, I really am. I think
it's a very wise move. You know. JASU is a
wonderful college. It's a hidden gym. And I'm proud the
(04:10):
fact that two of my kids went to JSU and
actually my three all three of my oldest ones actually
attended JAYSU at some point in time or another. Because
it's a fine institution, and I believe it or not,
it's an affordable college, you know, but it's an amazing
place to learn and anyways.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
And I think I think it's probably one of the
most beautiful locations in the Deep South. Yeah, we have
ringed by mountains. It's absolutely gorgeous. That's why you said Jim,
you said hidden, you said hidden. Gim. Actually the nickname
for the campus is called the Gym of the Hills
because it is so absolutely gorgeous, you know, everywhere you look.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I just always wonder if Jeff gets mad. You know,
we always talk about Jim, but Jeff never gets mentioned
brothers named Jim.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
And yet it's yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
You're talking about them bones again, right, and so yeah,
when why can't you just use plastic bones that look
like real ones to study human anatomy and teach everything
with that. Why do you need real bones?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Well, first off, you're not going to have the same density,
you're not going to have the same texture. Now, look,
at some point in tom down the road, there will
probably be a facsimile that you would have to look
at microscopically to determine that you're not holding an actual
human remain in your hands. It makes me think of
(05:35):
the movie Blade Runner, where they had to look at
things microscopically to look for serial numbers that are at
a cellular level that are tagged on there to see
that you know whether or not something was human or
not back then in that movie. I love both of
those movies, by the way, the one from the eighties
and then the second part that came out a few
(05:57):
years later with Ryan Wait, what's his name, Ryan Gossel. Yeah,
and yeah, that might happen at some point in time,
but it doesn't matter. You know what kind of polymer
that you use to recreate bones, And I've got I've
actually got a full skeleton in my office that is
made out of a polymer, and I can use it
demonstrably in classroom to talk about anatomical landmarks on skeletal remains,
(06:22):
and the kids can come up, you know, kind of
handle the remains and we have individual polymer bones as well.
You know, so if we're going to do, like in forensics,
one of the things we'll do, like I teach a
class and it's called clandestine burials where we can take remains,
dig a clandestine grave and bury them and the students
(06:44):
can learn how to excavate that site and they're looking
for bones at different depths or skeletal you know, skeletal
elements that are beneath the surface of the ground. They're
good for that purpose and you can use to identify
a specific anatomical landmarks, like where particular blood vessel passes
(07:07):
through a bone. You know, there's actually these little holes
in bone and here's an interesting little factoid. They're actually
known as foramen. So you've got these tiny little holes
that pass their bone where vessels go through. And of
course the largest framen that we have in our body
is called the foramen magnum and it's at the base
(07:28):
of the skull and it's where it's where your spinal
cord originates out of the brain stem, and it's this
large area in the back of your head, and that's
actually referred to as a framan as well. But you
look for anatomical landmarkings like that, and until you hold
a human bone and really feel it and really feel
(07:48):
the texture of it, it's really hard to learn. That's
you know, that's why, for instance, the Body Farm, but
UT has been so successful over the years because it's
not just you the students that utilize that facility. You've
got people from all over the world that have attended
classes there. And look, I'm you know, I don't get
paid by UT for promoting their program. But it's the
(08:10):
first of its kind, and it's actually a human desticcation
laboratory where they're watching human remains decay and you know,
measuring the rates of decay. But it's very environmentally specific
to that area up adjacent to the Smoky Mountains, you know,
whereas if you went down to the Maple Center, which
is another human desiccation lab that's located at the University
(08:33):
of Florida, you're gonna have different rates there. But I digress.
You know, you go to these places and you can
actually handle real human remains. What we're not expecting though,
is to be able to order human remains off of
the Internet so that we can do whatever in the
hell we want to do with them.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Saw sales paper Joe, Yeah, yeah, exactly, Because.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
You know, the case that we're going to talk about today, brother,
this is not the first one that we've had. I
don't know if you recall, I guess it was last year.
It was in twenty twenty three. We covered the case
of the funeral home director out in Colorado and she's
she's currently serving twenty years twenty years, and that was
a federal beef that they got her on relative to
(09:25):
they were taking anatomical elements off of bodies. In other words,
they were dissecting bodies, you know, and packaging those things
up and selling them to those individuals that wanted to
possess these things. And this is something that has been
going on. You know, I know times are tough all over,
(09:46):
but really you're going to take a body and break
it down into its base elements and sell it, you know,
how desperately do you need money? But in the case today, this,
I think this case entered onto kind of the or
came into focus for the FEDS and they initiated an
investigation into these individuals or individual it's been charts so far.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
It all came from a tip. You know, It's amazing
to me how people that are involved in criminal enterprise
when they don't take care of everyone, and because of
who they are and their character of ripping everybody off,
they rip off the wrong person at some point in time,
and somebody's going to pick up the phone and say, hey,
(10:30):
go check out Joe Schmoe over here. I know he's
selling body parts. Which I'm not going to say that's
exactly what happened, but that is exactly what happened. Somebody
called the police and said, hey, these people are selling
body parts. They're selling you know, they're selling skeletal remains,
they're selling bones. And here's the other part of it, Joe,
(10:50):
they weren't doing it in a back door out of
the trunk of their car at night. We're talking about
using Facebook Marketplace to put up a sale sheet on
sale this week, okay, and I'm not kidding. I looked
it up and there's actually a list. You could buy
two two, not one. Two human skull fragments just ninety dollars.
(11:13):
A human clappical and scapula ninety dollars. A human rib
ninety five dollars. Joe Wynn, have you ever seen a
human rib for just ninety five dollars? Go ahead, get three.
Actually it's thirty five dollars I dollars. Anyway, They're all
like that they've got these prices next to these bones,
even a partial human skull six hundred dollars. And Kimberly
(11:36):
Shopper has been doing this for a number of years.
She has a what's called a curio store in Florida,
and it seems like the bulk of her business was
done on Facebook Marketplace, along with her daughter that they
run a website and some other things. But Joe, is
it illegal to buy and sell human bone?
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah? It is, particularly in a non regulated manner like this.
You know, They're like when I mentioned to you that
we're going to have anatomical specimens here at the university.
That's it's highly regulated, you know, for any number of reasons,
the least of which is not respect for families. And
(12:20):
that's you know, that's kind of one of the big
pieces here. No pun intended. It's you know, when you
have no really you know, when you.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Have you know what you slipped up behind me with
a two buy for Joe. I didn't see that coming,
not at all for you.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Well, otherwise I'd be hanging curveball. But yeah, I'm just
saying it's you know, I make a lot out of
and I think that we a'll toute our own horn.
I think we do a really good job on body
bags of talking about the victims. You know, they're always
in the forefront for us. It's something that I said
(12:55):
to you when we started this enterprise that we were
going to do. We're going to focus more, hopefully on
the victims than we are on the perpetrators. Perpetrators get
enough ink splashed about them. And I don't care how
old the bones are. I don't care if they're antique. Uh,
(13:16):
you know, however you want to our vintage, I guess
that's the more cachet way of saying it. That makes
little or no difference to me. You know what, what
in the world are you doing peddling human remains? Because look,
you mentioned Facebook marketplace. All right, I got to tell you.
There's one member of my family. I'm not going to
(13:40):
mention their name, but their first initial is kimmy my wife.
She she's bought clothing and toys for my grandchildren off
a Facebook marketplace. It's something she's a she's a big
flea market person as well, or not flea market, but
my thirst store as well. We've always, you know, been
(14:03):
kind of simple folks like that, and so she'll go
on there. And so I'm thinking, all right, now, let
me get this straight. The same location, now again it's regionalized,
but the same location where you're selling you know, your
kids play school items, perhaps because your kids are have
(14:23):
outgrown them, maybe they're what's the term they gently used
or whatever right there. And then oh, well, what's this?
This looks interesting? You click on it. I guess it's
depending upon the algorithm. But all of a sudden you're
staring at scapula. It's like, wow, what is that? Oh
a scapula, a shoulder bone, you know, are you kidding me?
(14:46):
And I think that the thing that's so shocking, if
there is anything that can shock you or I, is
the fact that it's done in such an open way
that there's no fear of it. You know that it's
that it's acceptable. But I have to say, yeah, yeah,
(15:09):
and it's it's shocking. It's shocking to the point that
if you you know, we had a case some time
ago where there were graves being robbed and elements were
being taken from the grave and being sold. Okay, and
that has happened. We actually covered in an authorm case.
I don't know if you remember that of the skull
(15:30):
of the lady from the eighteen hundreds and she was
finally identified. Somebody had robbed that grave. Can you imagine
how heartbroken that family was when that happened. And so
anytime I hear something like this, I don't I don't
necessarily think about the individuals that are doing it, that
(15:55):
are selling. I think about the pain that they have caused,
because you're in a brand new world now. If they
get these remains and they send maybe a sample of
these remains to somebody like our friends at authorm Labs.
Guess what, it ain't just going to be any old
scapula or any old collar bone or any old rib.
(16:20):
Those elements are going to belong to somebody's family. You know,
you're a police officer and you get to work and
(16:42):
it's a daily grind. You're handling all manner of cases
that are popping up either via the nine to one
one or somebody walks in, they make a report or
something like that. So you're just mining your old business.
You've handled burglaries or all with this, maybe you've handled
an assault, and all of a sudden, this request for
(17:04):
an investigation comes in across your desk and it says,
we got this person down the street that's selling human remains.
You know, how do you deal with that at that
point in time? And I think that that's this is
landed in the lap of a local police department there
in Florida day Orange County.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah, it actually began.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And I.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Sometimes make light of things only because it's like a
building a wall a little bit, because if you actually
really look into this and you go to that next
level of family, friends, people who care about the individual,
it can really, it can really stumble you emotionally, and
so I tend to take the lighter route. But this one,
(17:49):
I was really curious when you were talking to me
about this, because we have done other stories where people
did it for nefarious means. Meaning you mentioned the funeral
home where they were, you know, selling one bill of
goods to the Breave family, and then they were, you know,
taking and selling things for profit that they had no
right to do, thankfully caught and going in in prison.
(18:09):
But in this case, the Orange City Police Department in
Florida gets a call about a person that is selling
human bones on Facebook marketplace. And her name is Kimberly Shopper,
appropriate name for the story. She's fifty two years old
(18:30):
and she's now facing charges Joe of trading in human tissue. Now,
when officers went to her store, she does own a
brick or rents the space for a brick and mortar story. Okay,
it's a curio shop of some sort. And the police
go and they talk to the owners and the people
at this store are like, well, yeah, we sell those bones.
(18:54):
They're verified here, you know, in their minds what they're doing.
While distasteful for me any people, it serves a purpose
in their world, and they didn't think they were doing
anything wrong, so they say, but they were able to
confirm everything police were. The investigation did not end there
because there were laws being broken. And just because you
(19:17):
don't know that cocaine is illegal, snorting and selling buying
what have you is and you will go to court
and jail. You can claim I didn't know same thing here.
You're buying and selling in human body parts. Verified human
body are not body parts but bones. And to say
I didn't know it was illegal, while it might be true,
(19:39):
it does not relieve you of the consequences of breaking
that law, especially when you're doing it for a profit.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Justice Scott Morgan, Yeah, I got to tell you. I
checked out their website, which is still up and running,
and it actually carries a dot org designation, which generally
means that you're a charit organization. You know, you're I
don't know, a soup kitchen or a church or something
like this, and I'm thinking, well, isn't that fascinating. You know,
(20:09):
so you're not making a profit off of this, or
profits go somewhere else. And when you look through the
list of the things that are being sold there, there's
like a category called creepy clowns, and there's images of
iron spikes and things like that. And look, I mean,
(20:29):
I'm not one of these people that says to each
their own. I think that there are limits, you know,
in this world. But I'm trying to understand, you know,
we have to have some guardrails out there. I'm thinking, well,
how do you conflate creepy clowns? If this is what
your business is, how do you conflate that with human remains?
(20:50):
Because you know, I don't know, these look like figurines,
these clowns. Many people have a fear of clowns, and
is there something evil about these that you know? If
people want them because they've got this creepy there's a
creepy element to them. And so you're you're going to
(21:10):
be selling these as well as human remains. And I'm thinking,
what is this business and why are you doing this?
Because it's failing to register with me because the only
purpose that I see that I see for possessing human
remains is the purpose of instruction period end of paragraph.
(21:37):
There is no further discussion at all, because if you're
getting off into an area where you're utilizing the remains
of someone's loved one for either your own entertainment or
a ghoulish sidebar, or even for dare I say, religious purposes.
(21:58):
You're only a completely different plane here than everybody else.
You're you know, we're not the ones that are out
of tune here. You are because it's it's horrible, you know,
to think about this. Why would you why would you
want to possess this, and why would you want to
purvey it to other people? And what's the purpose that
these individuals that are purchasing these items? Why do they
(22:21):
want it? Are they going to put it in the
center of the table and dance around it at night?
Or are they going to put it out on the
table during cocktail arter a hour and say, hey, look
what I'd got? Are they going to grind it up
and drink it in a potion? I don't. I don't
understand it. It doesn't It doesn't make sense to me
at all on any level. I don't think that there's
(22:42):
any justification for it at all. You know, and hopefully
they're not being used as soup bones, you know, where
you're trying to generate a broth of some kind. I
have no idea because it's not being explained to me thoroughly.
I don't I don't understand it. And look, I think
that many people that last statement, in particularly many people
(23:04):
in the past, would have been God, that's that's obscene.
You shouldn't have said that. The world that we live
in now, Dave, it ain't obscene, brother.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
And I am so glad it's.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
On the radar. I'll put it to you that way.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
I am so glad you said that, because my first thought, Joe,
when I start going into the story, my first one
was what come on now? It really was that moment
of this is off the table. This is kind of
like me going and talking to a retailer about why
I really don't want to see a Ouiji board with
the Monopoly game, you know, in on their shelves because
(23:40):
of where my children's eyes will be drawn to that
kind of thing. And as I was researching the woman
Kimberly Shopper, I wanted to find out, well, okay, she's
been accused, and actually it goes beyond the accusation because
she was advertising that she was selling these items and
the dot org don't main extension that. That was something
(24:01):
that also caught my attention because I thought, if it's
a nonprofit or because org stands for organization, and when
it was first set up as a domain, it was
for nonprofits, for ministries, for things like that. Well, we
all know that while you might think of your church
as a religious designation, for whatever organized religion you're a
(24:23):
part of that, there are some that are the opposite
of what many of us think of as churches. And
that's what my first thought drifted to when I went
to the website, because the word wicked says something to me.
It says a lot about what your thoughts are on
the world at large, who you are, what you do,
(24:44):
and when you start attaching these See I was thinking
that for educational purposes, having bones and things like that
to sell and trade what have you would remain at
the university level and beyond I didn't think, but I
didn't think it was illegal.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
To possess university or research or research level. And then
when you put the connotation wicked with it, it conjures
up no. Pun intended something completely different here as far
as a purpose. I think because I'm you know what,
(25:23):
because I got to tell you if we need to
have a serious discussion, first off. If this is being
used for a religious purpose, well, what religion requires you
to use human remains? All right? Because I don't care.
I mean, there have been and the court recognizes the
(25:43):
smallest element of the human body as a human or
an element of a human remain. There have been people
that have been convicted based upon discovery of a bone chip.
I cite to you murdering Colwita County. If no one
believes me, go back and take a look at that
case where a single bon ship led to the conviction
(26:04):
and ultimate, ultimately the execution of a fellow that had
killed another fellow. Okay, that's one consideration. Now the other
consideration is our human remains being used for the purposes
of entertainment. Now we're when you start to talk about entertainment,
(26:26):
we're at a completely different level now with that. I'm
not saying you can justify religion. But if you get
off into this idea that you're using the dead in
order to entertain others, or you're providing human remains to
that end, I think that it's it's chilling, it's really chilling,
(26:49):
and ultimately I think it's wicked. Dave, We've covered I
(27:09):
know that We've covered the Skelter recovery out of Georgia
from many years back. You and I did an episode
of Body Bags on the skeletal remains that they found
at the old medical school. Remember we talked about that,
how it was illegal due to autopsies, so they would
do them at night. They had grave robbers that they
(27:30):
would employ. We had the funeral home director that was
you know outside that was actually in Colorado where you
know this individual, Megan Hess it was forty six at
the time, as I had previously mentioned, was taking remains
(27:53):
at her funeral home and dissecting them up and selling
off the parts to, you know, to the highest bidder.
And you know, we've got a history of this that
goes back years and years and I think probably one
of the most predominant countries that has been a part
of this. Is something I learned early on, particularly when
I started my academic career, the origin of human remains
(28:17):
and sale of human remains in India. This goes back
to the initial beginnings of British occupation in India. India
has always been a very populous location and about the
same time that Great Britain took over in India, you
(28:41):
saw a loosening of the attitudes toward using real anatomical
specimens at medical schools and universities. So what began to
happen is that this is kind of fascinating, is that
there were a lot of grave diggers. There a lot
of gray robbers in India. And because the Ganges, which
(29:06):
is considered to be a holy river, bodies would be
buried adjacent to it or would be cast adrift in
the river and either the bodies would be very shallow
and they could be retrieved, or they would be essentially
fished out of the river and they were taken to
these individuals that would take the bodies, that pay the
(29:27):
engine because this is really ghastly. They would take the
bodies and render them down. They would take off every
bit of soft tissue off of these bodies, disarticulate the
skeleton and rearticulate it and then send it send it
to Europe to medical colleges there. And they would actually
(29:48):
have to go through Nepal to do this. So there
was this huge market thousands and thousands of bodies, and
many years ago it was actually in an anatomical lab
I won't say where, but and there was an old,
old skeleton in there, and it had that kind of
yellow patina to it that bone gets after a period
(30:08):
of time. And it was actually inked up on the
side of the body. And this doesn't necessarily have anything
to do with India itself, but with Indian ink, you've
heard that term before, and it's like a it's a
fountain a fountain ink and gives you an indication of
how all these remains were. They were labeled with this
really dark ink and written and you know, there was
(30:30):
script written on the side of them. Kind of chilling
when you see it. But from an artifact standpoint, it
was significant because this was hanging up in an anatomical lab.
But we've moved so far beyond that now that if
you need human remains, they can in fact be purchased
for the use of research and medical study. It's nothing
(30:53):
to be able to acquire these. You have to go
through the right purveyors in order to get your it.
But you're telling me, and what I have read, they're
not just there are specific anatomical bits to this, but
you're talking about bone fragments and actually skull fragments, and
(31:18):
this is one thing that's really disturbing to me about
that issue. If this individual had a couple of bone
human skull fragments, okay, that they were selling, does that
mean follow me here. Does that mean that someone at
some point in time took a human skeleton, a skull
(31:42):
and particulated it, in other words, took a hammer and
busted it up into smaller pieces. And each individual piece
of that skull has value for people that are interested
in buying this. And here's the thing, because when and
you consider what we refer to antomically as the external
(32:03):
table of the skull, that is with the frontal bone,
the parietal, the temporal bones, the occipital bones, the whole
nine yards, you're telling me that if you get a
fragment's bone, you're going to take that one fragment that
you have that you purchased, what was it for thirty
five bucks, You're going to do an antomical study on that.
(32:24):
Is that what you're going to use it for? You're
going to be able to identify that and say, well,
let me consider this. Yeah, this is obviously from the
frontel the right frontal aspect of a human skull. What's
your purpose in doing that? What landmarks are you going
to identify what are you using that for. As far
as academic edification, it doesn't make sense at all. And
(32:46):
those skull elements that were for sale, there's been an
indication by investigators because I can almost guarantee you that,
and they've got in Florida, they've got some of the
finest forensic anthropologists in the country. I like to call
them osteologists, people that actually study human bone in the
(33:08):
country are located down there. And I can tell you
that Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Medical Examiner system
down there, the Orange City Police Department, they all came
together and they turned these remains over to these human
osteologists forensic anthropologists in other words, and they've studied these
(33:29):
things and they've been able to come up with a
time sequencing on these things. And also if these bones
have been fragmented, one interesting piece to this day is
did this fragmentation occur anti mortem before death or did
it accur post mortem? And they would be able to
pick up on that as well. So if you're talking
about an anti mortem fracturing of this bone, then you've
(33:53):
got a bone that was potentially involved in some kind
of violent act that led to a death. And I
don't care how long or how old the bone is.
You can say that it's an antiquity piece. Prove it
to me. Prove it to me. If that's the case,
you're still talking about a human remain that has been
(34:13):
traumatized in you're selling this. I don't. Again, it's hard
to take the measure of it, Dave.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Well, that's where I began looking into it, Joe, because
when I first came at this, my thought was along
the educational lines of what they could be doing. Now
that's the giving it the benefit of the doubt, you know,
not going in with a preordained idea of what this
is going to be about. But one thing that I
noticed was again she claimed the person who was arrested here,
(34:41):
Kimberly Shopper said she didn't know it was illegal to buy, sell,
and trade in human bones, but she knew enough about
the law to tell police these were for educational models,
which is what you were just talking about a minute ago.
What could be gained educationally from this piece? And again,
(35:03):
you're not getting these from a lab or some I
would expect that an educational sample would come from a
lab or from some state.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Anatomical board. Yes, Yeah, the State Anatomical Board controls all
human remains relative to those that are going to be
scientifically gifted. Okay. And when I say scientific I'm not
talking about somebody that's gifted in science. I'm talking about
where a human remain has been designated as a gift
to science, you know, instead of being buried or cremated.
(35:34):
I want my body to go to X. Okay, and
that that is tightly I mean I've worked with these
people in three different states and it's tightly regulated in
every single state. That's who, you know, controls the strings
relative to education. I've had to jump through those hoops,
you know, in order to facilitate acquisition. So I find
(35:57):
it very curious that that that's her fallback position. Here, Dabi, well.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Side the store here and you are looking on the
shelf and you see a partial skull, a human skull,
next to a cookie jar that looks like a rams head,
you know, and next to that is I don't know,
and you name it just these little knickknacks, okay, And
that's what it seems to be. I just can't imagine
(36:25):
buying something for educational purposes and study in a curio
shop or for that matter online through Facebook marketplace. Now,
when I started looking into this, and this is why
I reached out to you on this, Joe, because there
are in our world we study and look at a
(36:46):
lot of different crimes, criminals, what they've done. And one
of the things that I've been watching over the years
is the Son of Sam murders in New York and
how they are tied to a killing in mine on
North Dakota and out at Stanford and that whole thing
that writer Maury Terry did a lot of work on.
(37:08):
And one of the things that came out of that book,
whether you go down that rabbit hole or not, was
that in each of these areas they found where there
had been blood sacrifice dogs in particular German shepherds more specifically,
where they had these satanic type of events taking place
at night. They had sacrifice sacrificed animals and they were
(37:32):
using German shepherds, and the bones and things were left
behind at these different scenes. And to go this next
level up, I looked at the website. I looked. I
wanted to see who is this person that's been arrested,
Kimberly Shopper. And that's why I sent this to you
earlier because I'm like, hey man, there's more to this.
There's something with this that is not as simply explained
as I'm a scientific nut trying to help other scientific
(37:55):
nuts learn. It's not educational to sell a sliver of bone.
It doesn't make any sense to me unless you were
doing something that is pertaining to some type of religious
expression that would fall under using a dot org domain.
And then I see the website and when you have
(38:19):
wicked in the title of your website, and it's a
part of all of your presentations for sales, Wicked and
things like that, following the left hand path. These are
all witches and things like that when you talk about
following the left handed path. And I saw that on
the website. So my question to you, Joe, is if
(38:39):
you're buying and selling and trading in bones, human bones
on an educational level at the collegiate level or even
at the high school level, I don't know that's one thing,
but for me to buy a bone so I can
dance around, to put feathers in it, burn candles, and
invite my friends to come over and sing songs while
(38:59):
we answer around this human bone that seems to be
something that ought to be regulated. Oh wait a minute,
it is regulated. So how does she get by selling
it at Facebook Marketplace for so many years without anybody
shutting it down until now?
Speaker 1 (39:15):
I don't know? You know again that that would be something.
You know, what are the if the authorities are on
Facebook Marketplace and we always hear that we're being watched
and everything. This is certainly something that flew beneath the
radar because I got to tell you, it would send
up red flags for me. And here's here's one more
issue with this that I have, Dave, and I'm sure
(39:37):
that investigators are exploring this right now. How many other
elements have gone have been sold? Because if this is
what they found right now, how long has this been
going on? And I think one of the bigger questions
is is where were these things acquired from? Because now
(39:58):
you're opening up a completely different different spectrum here. You know,
it's fascinating because one of the kind of catchphrases that's
used on this website is talking about going down the
rabbit hole. Well, in our case today, I have to
(40:20):
tell you there's an entirely different rabbit hole that the
authorities are going to go down. This investigation has just
started and it will go deeper and deeper until solid
answers are provided. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is
body Back
Body bus, But Joseph's gotten more. Let me throw something
out there to you. If you had a chance to
once again hold in your arms that person that you
love most on this earth that has now passed on,
(00:25):
would you do it? What price would you pay? Would
you drop a million bucks? If you had it? Half
a mil and I mean to really sit down and
hold them, to maybe look at them one more time,
maybe have a conversation. Would you do that? I know
(00:49):
for me personally, the person I would want to bring
back into my life is my grandmother. I love that woman,
think about her every day. But what if I told
you it could cost you, I don't know, thirty five bucks,
(01:10):
ninety bucks, six hundred, what say you? Well? In this
case that we're going to talk about today, we're not
talking about holding the reanimated remains of someone that you loved.
We're talking about an anatomical element of someone that was
(01:34):
once loved by someone else. We're going to explore a
case that popped onto our radar in just these last
few days about a person who is selling elements of
human remains down in Florida. Joining you from the beautiful
(01:58):
campus of Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama. I'm Joseph
Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks. Hey, Dave, speaking of
the jack State. Guess what.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
I'm guessing, go for it.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
We just got approved yesterday by the Board of Trustees
for our master's degree in investigative forensics. It's been a
long time coming after committee. Well, it means that you're
going to be able to come here and do graduate
research work in the areas of trace evidence, the areas
(02:44):
of toxicology, crim seene investigation, and of course my favorite,
personal favorite is going to be medical legal death investigation
as well as cold case. So it's a big deal.
It's going to be the first program of its type
in our particular region of the country. And we've been
(03:05):
around as a forensics institution since about nineteen seventy four,
so we predate a lot of these Johnny Come latelys
that you see that are out there. We've been doing
this for a while. But hey, you know what, there's
one other element that gets added to this as well, Dave,
I am going to have a cadaver lab. I'm going
(03:25):
to have a cadaver lab here on campus where we
will have human remains that we will be doing examinations
of in the medical legal courses that we teach here,
and we're going to be teaching some human anatomy obviously,
what goes into an autopsy and how to collect evidence
off of human remains. How cool is that?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
That's pretty amazing, you know, from the get go, expanding
what you already have. You've built up such a respected
program nationwide and internationally. Actually that I'm glad that it's
I'm glad they're doing that, I really am. I think
it's a very wise move. You know. JASU is a
wonderful college. It's a hidden gym. And I'm proud the
(04:10):
fact that two of my kids went to JSU and
actually my three all three of my oldest ones actually
attended JAYSU at some point in time or another. Because
it's a fine institution, and I believe it or not,
it's an affordable college, you know, but it's an amazing
place to learn and anyways.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
And I think I think it's probably one of the
most beautiful locations in the Deep South. Yeah, we have
ringed by mountains. It's absolutely gorgeous. That's why you said Jim,
you said hidden, you said hidden. Gim. Actually the nickname
for the campus is called the Gym of the Hills
because it is so absolutely gorgeous, you know, everywhere you look.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I just always wonder if Jeff gets mad. You know,
we always talk about Jim, but Jeff never gets mentioned
brothers named Jim.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
And yet it's yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
You're talking about them bones again, right, and so yeah,
when why can't you just use plastic bones that look
like real ones to study human anatomy and teach everything
with that. Why do you need real bones?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Well, first off, you're not going to have the same density,
you're not going to have the same texture. Now, look,
at some point in tom down the road, there will
probably be a facsimile that you would have to look
at microscopically to determine that you're not holding an actual
human remain in your hands. It makes me think of
(05:35):
the movie Blade Runner, where they had to look at
things microscopically to look for serial numbers that are at
a cellular level that are tagged on there to see
that you know whether or not something was human or
not back then in that movie. I love both of
those movies, by the way, the one from the eighties
and then the second part that came out a few
(05:57):
years later with Ryan Wait, what's his name, Ryan Gossel. Yeah,
and yeah, that might happen at some point in time,
but it doesn't matter. You know what kind of polymer
that you use to recreate bones, And I've got I've
actually got a full skeleton in my office that is
made out of a polymer, and I can use it
demonstrably in classroom to talk about anatomical landmarks on skeletal remains,
(06:22):
and the kids can come up, you know, kind of
handle the remains and we have individual polymer bones as well.
You know, so if we're going to do, like in forensics,
one of the things we'll do, like I teach a
class and it's called clandestine burials where we can take remains,
dig a clandestine grave and bury them and the students
(06:44):
can learn how to excavate that site and they're looking
for bones at different depths or skeletal you know, skeletal
elements that are beneath the surface of the ground. They're
good for that purpose and you can use to identify
a specific anatomical landmarks, like where particular blood vessel passes
(07:07):
through a bone. You know, there's actually these little holes
in bone and here's an interesting little factoid. They're actually
known as foramen. So you've got these tiny little holes
that pass their bone where vessels go through. And of
course the largest framen that we have in our body
is called the foramen magnum and it's at the base
(07:28):
of the skull and it's where it's where your spinal
cord originates out of the brain stem, and it's this
large area in the back of your head, and that's
actually referred to as a framan as well. But you
look for anatomical landmarkings like that, and until you hold
a human bone and really feel it and really feel
(07:48):
the texture of it, it's really hard to learn. That's
you know, that's why, for instance, the Body Farm, but
UT has been so successful over the years because it's
not just you the students that utilize that facility. You've
got people from all over the world that have attended
classes there. And look, I'm you know, I don't get
paid by UT for promoting their program. But it's the
(08:10):
first of its kind, and it's actually a human desticcation
laboratory where they're watching human remains decay and you know,
measuring the rates of decay. But it's very environmentally specific
to that area up adjacent to the Smoky Mountains, you know,
whereas if you went down to the Maple Center, which
is another human desiccation lab that's located at the University
(08:33):
of Florida, you're gonna have different rates there. But I digress.
You know, you go to these places and you can
actually handle real human remains. What we're not expecting though,
is to be able to order human remains off of
the Internet so that we can do whatever in the
hell we want to do with them.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Saw sales paper Joe, Yeah, yeah, exactly, Because.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
You know, the case that we're going to talk about today, brother,
this is not the first one that we've had. I
don't know if you recall, I guess it was last year.
It was in twenty twenty three. We covered the case
of the funeral home director out in Colorado and she's
she's currently serving twenty years twenty years, and that was
a federal beef that they got her on relative to
(09:25):
they were taking anatomical elements off of bodies. In other words,
they were dissecting bodies, you know, and packaging those things
up and selling them to those individuals that wanted to
possess these things. And this is something that has been
going on. You know, I know times are tough all over,
(09:46):
but really you're going to take a body and break
it down into its base elements and sell it, you know,
how desperately do you need money? But in the case today, this,
I think this case entered onto kind of the or
came into focus for the FEDS and they initiated an
investigation into these individuals or individual it's been charts so far.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
It all came from a tip. You know, It's amazing
to me how people that are involved in criminal enterprise
when they don't take care of everyone, and because of
who they are and their character of ripping everybody off,
they rip off the wrong person at some point in time,
and somebody's going to pick up the phone and say, hey,
(10:30):
go check out Joe Schmoe over here. I know he's
selling body parts. Which I'm not going to say that's
exactly what happened, but that is exactly what happened. Somebody
called the police and said, hey, these people are selling
body parts. They're selling you know, they're selling skeletal remains,
they're selling bones. And here's the other part of it, Joe,
(10:50):
they weren't doing it in a back door out of
the trunk of their car at night. We're talking about
using Facebook Marketplace to put up a sale sheet on
sale this week, okay, and I'm not kidding. I looked
it up and there's actually a list. You could buy
two two, not one. Two human skull fragments just ninety dollars.
(11:13):
A human clappical and scapula ninety dollars. A human rib
ninety five dollars. Joe Wynn, have you ever seen a
human rib for just ninety five dollars? Go ahead, get three.
Actually it's thirty five dollars I dollars. Anyway, They're all
like that they've got these prices next to these bones,
even a partial human skull six hundred dollars. And Kimberly
(11:36):
Shopper has been doing this for a number of years.
She has a what's called a curio store in Florida,
and it seems like the bulk of her business was
done on Facebook Marketplace, along with her daughter that they
run a website and some other things. But Joe, is
it illegal to buy and sell human bone?
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah? It is, particularly in a non regulated manner like this.
You know, They're like when I mentioned to you that
we're going to have anatomical specimens here at the university.
That's it's highly regulated, you know, for any number of reasons,
the least of which is not respect for families. And
(12:20):
that's you know, that's kind of one of the big
pieces here. No pun intended. It's you know, when you
have no really you know, when you.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Have you know what you slipped up behind me with
a two buy for Joe. I didn't see that coming,
not at all for you.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Well, otherwise I'd be hanging curveball. But yeah, I'm just
saying it's you know, I make a lot out of
and I think that we a'll toute our own horn.
I think we do a really good job on body
bags of talking about the victims. You know, they're always
in the forefront for us. It's something that I said
(12:55):
to you when we started this enterprise that we were
going to do. We're going to focus more, hopefully on
the victims than we are on the perpetrators. Perpetrators get
enough ink splashed about them. And I don't care how
old the bones are. I don't care if they're antique. Uh,
(13:16):
you know, however you want to our vintage, I guess
that's the more cachet way of saying it. That makes
little or no difference to me. You know what, what
in the world are you doing peddling human remains? Because look,
you mentioned Facebook marketplace. All right, I got to tell you.
There's one member of my family. I'm not going to
(13:40):
mention their name, but their first initial is kimmy my wife.
She she's bought clothing and toys for my grandchildren off
a Facebook marketplace. It's something she's a she's a big
flea market person as well, or not flea market, but
my thirst store as well. We've always, you know, been
(14:03):
kind of simple folks like that, and so she'll go
on there. And so I'm thinking, all right, now, let
me get this straight. The same location, now again it's regionalized,
but the same location where you're selling you know, your
kids play school items, perhaps because your kids are have
(14:23):
outgrown them, maybe they're what's the term they gently used
or whatever right there. And then oh, well, what's this?
This looks interesting? You click on it. I guess it's
depending upon the algorithm. But all of a sudden you're
staring at scapula. It's like, wow, what is that? Oh
a scapula, a shoulder bone, you know, are you kidding me?
(14:46):
And I think that the thing that's so shocking, if
there is anything that can shock you or I, is
the fact that it's done in such an open way
that there's no fear of it. You know that it's
that it's acceptable. But I have to say, yeah, yeah,
(15:09):
and it's it's shocking. It's shocking to the point that
if you you know, we had a case some time
ago where there were graves being robbed and elements were
being taken from the grave and being sold. Okay, and
that has happened. We actually covered in an authorm case.
I don't know if you remember that of the skull
(15:30):
of the lady from the eighteen hundreds and she was
finally identified. Somebody had robbed that grave. Can you imagine
how heartbroken that family was when that happened. And so
anytime I hear something like this, I don't I don't
necessarily think about the individuals that are doing it, that
(15:55):
are selling. I think about the pain that they have caused,
because you're in a brand new world now. If they
get these remains and they send maybe a sample of
these remains to somebody like our friends at authorm Labs.
Guess what, it ain't just going to be any old
scapula or any old collar bone or any old rib.
(16:20):
Those elements are going to belong to somebody's family. You know,
you're a police officer and you get to work and
(16:42):
it's a daily grind. You're handling all manner of cases
that are popping up either via the nine to one
one or somebody walks in, they make a report or
something like that. So you're just mining your old business.
You've handled burglaries or all with this, maybe you've handled
an assault, and all of a sudden, this request for
(17:04):
an investigation comes in across your desk and it says,
we got this person down the street that's selling human remains.
You know, how do you deal with that at that
point in time? And I think that that's this is
landed in the lap of a local police department there
in Florida day Orange County.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah, it actually began.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And I.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Sometimes make light of things only because it's like a
building a wall a little bit, because if you actually
really look into this and you go to that next
level of family, friends, people who care about the individual,
it can really, it can really stumble you emotionally, and
so I tend to take the lighter route. But this one,
(17:49):
I was really curious when you were talking to me
about this, because we have done other stories where people
did it for nefarious means. Meaning you mentioned the funeral
home where they were, you know, selling one bill of
goods to the Breave family, and then they were, you know,
taking and selling things for profit that they had no
right to do, thankfully caught and going in in prison.
(18:09):
But in this case, the Orange City Police Department in
Florida gets a call about a person that is selling
human bones on Facebook marketplace. And her name is Kimberly Shopper,
appropriate name for the story. She's fifty two years old
(18:30):
and she's now facing charges Joe of trading in human tissue. Now,
when officers went to her store, she does own a
brick or rents the space for a brick and mortar story. Okay,
it's a curio shop of some sort. And the police
go and they talk to the owners and the people
at this store are like, well, yeah, we sell those bones.
(18:54):
They're verified here, you know, in their minds what they're doing.
While distasteful for me any people, it serves a purpose
in their world, and they didn't think they were doing
anything wrong, so they say, but they were able to
confirm everything police were. The investigation did not end there
because there were laws being broken. And just because you
(19:17):
don't know that cocaine is illegal, snorting and selling buying
what have you is and you will go to court
and jail. You can claim I didn't know same thing here.
You're buying and selling in human body parts. Verified human
body are not body parts but bones. And to say
I didn't know it was illegal, while it might be true,
(19:39):
it does not relieve you of the consequences of breaking
that law, especially when you're doing it for a profit.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Justice Scott Morgan, Yeah, I got to tell you. I
checked out their website, which is still up and running,
and it actually carries a dot org designation, which generally
means that you're a charit organization. You know, you're I
don't know, a soup kitchen or a church or something
like this, and I'm thinking, well, isn't that fascinating. You know,
(20:09):
so you're not making a profit off of this, or
profits go somewhere else. And when you look through the
list of the things that are being sold there, there's
like a category called creepy clowns, and there's images of
iron spikes and things like that. And look, I mean,
(20:29):
I'm not one of these people that says to each
their own. I think that there are limits, you know,
in this world. But I'm trying to understand, you know,
we have to have some guardrails out there. I'm thinking, well,
how do you conflate creepy clowns? If this is what
your business is, how do you conflate that with human remains?
(20:50):
Because you know, I don't know, these look like figurines,
these clowns. Many people have a fear of clowns, and
is there something evil about these that you know? If
people want them because they've got this creepy there's a
creepy element to them. And so you're you're going to
(21:10):
be selling these as well as human remains. And I'm thinking,
what is this business and why are you doing this?
Because it's failing to register with me because the only
purpose that I see that I see for possessing human
remains is the purpose of instruction period end of paragraph.
(21:37):
There is no further discussion at all, because if you're
getting off into an area where you're utilizing the remains
of someone's loved one for either your own entertainment or
a ghoulish sidebar, or even for dare I say, religious purposes.
(21:58):
You're only a completely different plane here than everybody else.
You're you know, we're not the ones that are out
of tune here. You are because it's it's horrible, you know,
to think about this. Why would you why would you
want to possess this, and why would you want to
purvey it to other people? And what's the purpose that
these individuals that are purchasing these items? Why do they
(22:21):
want it? Are they going to put it in the
center of the table and dance around it at night?
Or are they going to put it out on the
table during cocktail arter a hour and say, hey, look
what I'd got? Are they going to grind it up
and drink it in a potion? I don't. I don't
understand it. It doesn't It doesn't make sense to me
at all on any level. I don't think that there's
(22:42):
any justification for it at all. You know, and hopefully
they're not being used as soup bones, you know, where
you're trying to generate a broth of some kind. I
have no idea because it's not being explained to me thoroughly.
I don't I don't understand it. And look, I think
that many people that last statement, in particularly many people
(23:04):
in the past, would have been God, that's that's obscene.
You shouldn't have said that. The world that we live
in now, Dave, it ain't obscene, brother.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
And I am so glad it's.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
On the radar. I'll put it to you that way.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
I am so glad you said that, because my first thought, Joe,
when I start going into the story, my first one
was what come on now? It really was that moment
of this is off the table. This is kind of
like me going and talking to a retailer about why
I really don't want to see a Ouiji board with
the Monopoly game, you know, in on their shelves because
(23:40):
of where my children's eyes will be drawn to that
kind of thing. And as I was researching the woman
Kimberly Shopper, I wanted to find out, well, okay, she's
been accused, and actually it goes beyond the accusation because
she was advertising that she was selling these items and
the dot org don't main extension that. That was something
(24:01):
that also caught my attention because I thought, if it's
a nonprofit or because org stands for organization, and when
it was first set up as a domain, it was
for nonprofits, for ministries, for things like that. Well, we
all know that while you might think of your church
as a religious designation, for whatever organized religion you're a
(24:23):
part of that, there are some that are the opposite
of what many of us think of as churches. And
that's what my first thought drifted to when I went
to the website, because the word wicked says something to me.
It says a lot about what your thoughts are on
the world at large, who you are, what you do,
(24:44):
and when you start attaching these See I was thinking
that for educational purposes, having bones and things like that
to sell and trade what have you would remain at
the university level and beyond I didn't think, but I
didn't think it was illegal.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
To possess university or research or research level. And then
when you put the connotation wicked with it, it conjures
up no. Pun intended something completely different here as far
as a purpose. I think because I'm you know what,
(25:23):
because I got to tell you if we need to
have a serious discussion, first off. If this is being
used for a religious purpose, well, what religion requires you
to use human remains? All right? Because I don't care.
I mean, there have been and the court recognizes the
(25:43):
smallest element of the human body as a human or
an element of a human remain. There have been people
that have been convicted based upon discovery of a bone chip.
I cite to you murdering Colwita County. If no one
believes me, go back and take a look at that
case where a single bon ship led to the conviction
(26:04):
and ultimate, ultimately the execution of a fellow that had
killed another fellow. Okay, that's one consideration. Now the other
consideration is our human remains being used for the purposes
of entertainment. Now we're when you start to talk about entertainment,
(26:26):
we're at a completely different level now with that. I'm
not saying you can justify religion. But if you get
off into this idea that you're using the dead in
order to entertain others, or you're providing human remains to
that end, I think that it's it's chilling, it's really chilling,
(26:49):
and ultimately I think it's wicked. Dave, We've covered I
(27:09):
know that We've covered the Skelter recovery out of Georgia
from many years back. You and I did an episode
of Body Bags on the skeletal remains that they found
at the old medical school. Remember we talked about that,
how it was illegal due to autopsies, so they would
do them at night. They had grave robbers that they
(27:30):
would employ. We had the funeral home director that was
you know outside that was actually in Colorado where you
know this individual, Megan Hess it was forty six at
the time, as I had previously mentioned, was taking remains
(27:53):
at her funeral home and dissecting them up and selling
off the parts to, you know, to the highest bidder.
And you know, we've got a history of this that
goes back years and years and I think probably one
of the most predominant countries that has been a part
of this. Is something I learned early on, particularly when
I started my academic career, the origin of human remains
(28:17):
and sale of human remains in India. This goes back
to the initial beginnings of British occupation in India. India
has always been a very populous location and about the
same time that Great Britain took over in India, you
(28:41):
saw a loosening of the attitudes toward using real anatomical
specimens at medical schools and universities. So what began to
happen is that this is kind of fascinating, is that
there were a lot of grave diggers. There a lot
of gray robbers in India. And because the Ganges, which
(29:06):
is considered to be a holy river, bodies would be
buried adjacent to it or would be cast adrift in
the river and either the bodies would be very shallow
and they could be retrieved, or they would be essentially
fished out of the river and they were taken to
these individuals that would take the bodies, that pay the
(29:27):
engine because this is really ghastly. They would take the
bodies and render them down. They would take off every
bit of soft tissue off of these bodies, disarticulate the
skeleton and rearticulate it and then send it send it
to Europe to medical colleges there. And they would actually
(29:48):
have to go through Nepal to do this. So there
was this huge market thousands and thousands of bodies, and
many years ago it was actually in an anatomical lab
I won't say where, but and there was an old,
old skeleton in there, and it had that kind of
yellow patina to it that bone gets after a period
(30:08):
of time. And it was actually inked up on the
side of the body. And this doesn't necessarily have anything
to do with India itself, but with Indian ink, you've
heard that term before, and it's like a it's a
fountain a fountain ink and gives you an indication of
how all these remains were. They were labeled with this
really dark ink and written and you know, there was
(30:30):
script written on the side of them. Kind of chilling
when you see it. But from an artifact standpoint, it
was significant because this was hanging up in an anatomical lab.
But we've moved so far beyond that now that if
you need human remains, they can in fact be purchased
for the use of research and medical study. It's nothing
(30:53):
to be able to acquire these. You have to go
through the right purveyors in order to get your it.
But you're telling me, and what I have read, they're
not just there are specific anatomical bits to this, but
you're talking about bone fragments and actually skull fragments, and
(31:18):
this is one thing that's really disturbing to me about
that issue. If this individual had a couple of bone
human skull fragments, okay, that they were selling, does that
mean follow me here. Does that mean that someone at
some point in time took a human skeleton, a skull
(31:42):
and particulated it, in other words, took a hammer and
busted it up into smaller pieces. And each individual piece
of that skull has value for people that are interested
in buying this. And here's the thing, because when and
you consider what we refer to antomically as the external
(32:03):
table of the skull, that is with the frontal bone,
the parietal, the temporal bones, the occipital bones, the whole
nine yards, you're telling me that if you get a
fragment's bone, you're going to take that one fragment that
you have that you purchased, what was it for thirty
five bucks, You're going to do an antomical study on that.
(32:24):
Is that what you're going to use it for? You're
going to be able to identify that and say, well,
let me consider this. Yeah, this is obviously from the
frontel the right frontal aspect of a human skull. What's
your purpose in doing that? What landmarks are you going
to identify what are you using that for. As far
as academic edification, it doesn't make sense at all. And
(32:46):
those skull elements that were for sale, there's been an
indication by investigators because I can almost guarantee you that,
and they've got in Florida, they've got some of the
finest forensic anthropologists in the country. I like to call
them osteologists, people that actually study human bone in the
(33:08):
country are located down there. And I can tell you
that Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Medical Examiner system
down there, the Orange City Police Department, they all came
together and they turned these remains over to these human
osteologists forensic anthropologists in other words, and they've studied these
(33:29):
things and they've been able to come up with a
time sequencing on these things. And also if these bones
have been fragmented, one interesting piece to this day is
did this fragmentation occur anti mortem before death or did
it accur post mortem? And they would be able to
pick up on that as well. So if you're talking
about an anti mortem fracturing of this bone, then you've
(33:53):
got a bone that was potentially involved in some kind
of violent act that led to a death. And I
don't care how long or how old the bone is.
You can say that it's an antiquity piece. Prove it
to me. Prove it to me. If that's the case,
you're still talking about a human remain that has been
(34:13):
traumatized in you're selling this. I don't. Again, it's hard
to take the measure of it, Dave.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Well, that's where I began looking into it, Joe, because
when I first came at this, my thought was along
the educational lines of what they could be doing. Now
that's the giving it the benefit of the doubt, you know,
not going in with a preordained idea of what this
is going to be about. But one thing that I
noticed was again she claimed the person who was arrested here,
(34:41):
Kimberly Shopper said she didn't know it was illegal to buy, sell,
and trade in human bones, but she knew enough about
the law to tell police these were for educational models,
which is what you were just talking about a minute ago.
What could be gained educationally from this piece? And again,
(35:03):
you're not getting these from a lab or some I
would expect that an educational sample would come from a
lab or from some state.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Anatomical board. Yes, Yeah, the State Anatomical Board controls all
human remains relative to those that are going to be
scientifically gifted. Okay. And when I say scientific I'm not
talking about somebody that's gifted in science. I'm talking about
where a human remain has been designated as a gift
to science, you know, instead of being buried or cremated.
(35:34):
I want my body to go to X. Okay, and
that that is tightly I mean I've worked with these
people in three different states and it's tightly regulated in
every single state. That's who, you know, controls the strings
relative to education. I've had to jump through those hoops,
you know, in order to facilitate acquisition. So I find
(35:57):
it very curious that that that's her fallback position. Here, Dabi, well.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Side the store here and you are looking on the
shelf and you see a partial skull, a human skull,
next to a cookie jar that looks like a rams head,
you know, and next to that is I don't know,
and you name it just these little knickknacks, okay, And
that's what it seems to be. I just can't imagine
(36:25):
buying something for educational purposes and study in a curio
shop or for that matter online through Facebook marketplace. Now,
when I started looking into this, and this is why
I reached out to you on this, Joe, because there
are in our world we study and look at a
(36:46):
lot of different crimes, criminals, what they've done. And one
of the things that I've been watching over the years
is the Son of Sam murders in New York and
how they are tied to a killing in mine on
North Dakota and out at Stanford and that whole thing
that writer Maury Terry did a lot of work on.
(37:08):
And one of the things that came out of that book,
whether you go down that rabbit hole or not, was
that in each of these areas they found where there
had been blood sacrifice dogs in particular German shepherds more specifically,
where they had these satanic type of events taking place
at night. They had sacrifice sacrificed animals and they were
(37:32):
using German shepherds, and the bones and things were left
behind at these different scenes. And to go this next
level up, I looked at the website. I looked. I
wanted to see who is this person that's been arrested,
Kimberly Shopper. And that's why I sent this to you
earlier because I'm like, hey man, there's more to this.
There's something with this that is not as simply explained
as I'm a scientific nut trying to help other scientific
(37:55):
nuts learn. It's not educational to sell a sliver of bone.
It doesn't make any sense to me unless you were
doing something that is pertaining to some type of religious
expression that would fall under using a dot org domain.
And then I see the website and when you have
(38:19):
wicked in the title of your website, and it's a
part of all of your presentations for sales, Wicked and
things like that, following the left hand path. These are
all witches and things like that when you talk about
following the left handed path. And I saw that on
the website. So my question to you, Joe, is if
(38:39):
you're buying and selling and trading in bones, human bones
on an educational level at the collegiate level or even
at the high school level, I don't know that's one thing,
but for me to buy a bone so I can
dance around, to put feathers in it, burn candles, and
invite my friends to come over and sing songs while
(38:59):
we answer around this human bone that seems to be
something that ought to be regulated. Oh wait a minute,
it is regulated. So how does she get by selling
it at Facebook Marketplace for so many years without anybody
shutting it down until now?
Speaker 1 (39:15):
I don't know? You know again that that would be something.
You know, what are the if the authorities are on
Facebook Marketplace and we always hear that we're being watched
and everything. This is certainly something that flew beneath the
radar because I got to tell you, it would send
up red flags for me. And here's here's one more
issue with this that I have, Dave, and I'm sure
(39:37):
that investigators are exploring this right now. How many other
elements have gone have been sold? Because if this is
what they found right now, how long has this been
going on? And I think one of the bigger questions
is is where were these things acquired from? Because now
(39:58):
you're opening up a completely different different spectrum here. You know,
it's fascinating because one of the kind of catchphrases that's
used on this website is talking about going down the
rabbit hole. Well, in our case today, I have to
(40:20):
tell you there's an entirely different rabbit hole that the
authorities are going to go down. This investigation has just
started and it will go deeper and deeper until solid
answers are provided. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is
body Back
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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