Human skull, on sale for $4,000, draws attention to the Florida store
In a nod to Halloween, Beth Meyer, owner of a stone and crystal shop in North Fort Myers Florida, placed a human skull in a glass display case there and surrounded it with quartz towers and other crystals.
But Mrs. Meyer, 62, who intended to use the skull only as a “talking point” and did not really want to part with it, put a “very high price” on it, $4,000.
Still, the skull drew attention to her shop, Elemental Arts, in the Paradise Vintage Market.
On Saturday morning, while Mrs. Meyer was in the store unpacking vintage clothing and luxury glassware, a deputy from the Lee County Sheriff’s Office came in to question her about the skull. It is a misdemeanor in Florida to knowingly buy or sell human remains.
“We are working diligently to see if a crime has been committed,” said Carmine Marceno, the county sheriff, who added that his office was working with the office of Amira Fox, the Florida state attorney whose jurisdiction includes Lee County includes. “If a human skull ends up in a store, it’s alarming.”
Mrs. Meyer knew the skull was human. But it was an anthropologist, Michelle Calhoun, who saw it in the store and reported it to the sheriff’s office, according to an incident report. Ms. Calhoun told a deputy she was certain the skull belonged to someone who was Native American. Attempts to reach her by telephone on Monday were immediately unsuccessful.
Sheriff Marceno said the skull, which appeared to be about 75 years old, showed no signs of trauma or foul play, but the medical examiner’s office was investigating the matter further.
Phone messages and emails to the District 21 Medical Examiner’s Office, which serves Lee County, and Ms. Fox’s office on Monday were not immediately returned.
Ms. Meyer, who is also managing partner of Paradise Vintage Market, said she acquired the skull last year when she bought a storage unit that belonged to an elderly man who was ill. She said she buys more than 100 such units each year as part of her job, and often doesn’t collect names or contact information from the sellers.
“We never know what we’ll find in the storage room,” Ms. Meyer said. “But this was probably the most interesting thing we ever found.”
Ms. Meyer said a quick Google search turned up no federal statutes prohibiting the sale of human remains, so she decided to put it up for sale. “I didn’t look at the Florida statutes,” she added.
Maybe she should have.
Selling human remains “is generally not legal,” said Dr. Phoebe Stubblefield, director of the CA Pound Human Identification Laboratory at the University of Florida. But Dr. Stubblefield, a forensic anthropologist who has examined hundreds of skulls throughout her career, said she wasn’t surprised when she heard a human skull was for sale.
Earlier this year, Dr. Stubblefield, she saw a curiosities market in Orange County, Florida, where she sold so-called real human remains. “Most people don’t check the code all the time,” she said.
It is against federal law to buy or sell the human remains of Native Americans under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, said Jennifer Knutson, president of the Florida Anthropological Society.
After Ms. Meyer met with the sheriff’s deputy on Saturday, she said, Ms. Calhoun came back to the store. She explained to them why certain features of the skull, including the brow area and the formation of the teeth, led her to believe the skull belonged to a young Native American woman, Ms. Meyer said.
During their meeting, Ms. Calhoun said, “Beth, if it’s Native American, then there needs to be a burial ceremony,” said Ms. Meyer, who added, “It would be so interesting to be a part of That.”