Florida Woman Arrested for Selling Human Remains on Facebook Marketplace
Down in the wild and wonderful world of Florida, the owner of an oddities shop has been arrested for selling human remains on Facebook Marketplace.
As USA Today reports, 52-year-old Kymberlee Schopper has been charged with the illegal purchase and sale of human bones on Zuckerberg's commerce platform.
At the end of 2023, police in the Daytona Beach suburb of Orange City received a tip that Wicked Wonderland, Schopper's shop that also advertises pet taxidermy and animal "mummification" on its website, was selling various human bones and skeletal fragments.
From a $35 human rib to a $600 partial human skull, the store's wares were valued at $850 in the tip authorities received. When they spoke with Schopper's daughter and co-owner, 33-year-old Ashley Lelesi, the proprietress copped to the sale without hesitation. According to the affidavit viewed by USA Today, the mother-daughter team was unaware that selling bones was illegal in the state of Florida — one of only eight American states that broadly bans the practice, though dozens of other states have conditional prohibitions on it.
Lelesi told the cops that she and Schopper had purchased the bone lot from various private sellers. She provided police with five of the six specimens and told them the shop had already sold a piece of skull fragment for $50, even providing receipts for the purchase and sale of all the bones in question.
Later, both mother and daughter met with police and had, at that point, changed their tune. According to the affidavit, Schopper told authorities that the bones were "educational models," which would place them in a legal loophole within the state's ban on the sale of human remains.
Apparently, the cops didn't buy it, and Schopper was charged with purchasing or selling human organs and tissue, a second-degree felony that can carry up to a 15-year prison sentence and a $10,000 fine. It does not appear that Lelesi was charged with any crime, and the mother posted her $7,500 bail following her arrest.
Nine years ago and 650 miles away, a similar debacle unfolded in New Orleans after Ender Darling, a member of a Facebook group called "Queer Witch Collective," told their fellow magic practitioners that they had some local bones for sale. Per their initial post, Darling had taken to procuring bones from a "poor man's graveyard" near their house that would rise to the surface during rainstorms in the notoriously stormy city — and would happily sell them to their fellow witches for the cost of shipping.
The Queer Witch Collective exploded in fury at Darling for not only collecting bones without consent from the families of the deceased, but also turning a profit off them. Though Darling's ethnic background remains something of a mystery, they are decidedly not Black, and as speculation raged about which graveyard they got the bones from, many commentators on the increasingly-fiery — and now mythical — thread pointed out that the majority of people buried in a New Orleans potter's field would be Black.
After this "bones discourse" spread to Tumblr and became a meme, people in power caught wind of the "Boneghazi" debacle. After being tailed by police, Darling was arrested in Florida — where else? — and charged with burglary and trafficking human remains, though those charges were minimized after they pleaded guilty.
As the investigation unfolded, Louisiana enacted its Human Remains Protection and Control Act, which called for harsher punishment for the trafficking of bones and other body parts and brought it into the fold of states that criminalize the practice.
Though it's entirely plausible that the owners of Wicked Wonderland were unaware that selling bones is illegal in Florida, they could have done a quick Google search about what happened to the last person who got caught doing it — and saved themselves a world of trouble.
More on selling parts: Shop Scrutinized for Selling Human Bodies Out of a Strip Mall
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USA Today
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Indianapolis Star
an hour ago
- Indianapolis Star
City dismantled Black community for urban renewal. Decades later, it still hasn't happened
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But some City Council members preferred selling chunks of Benham West to industrial developers and were concerned that building a park would indefinitely lock the city into paying for maintenance costs. A years-long impasse over whether a predominantly Black neighborhood deserved a park consumed much of Kesim's time as mayor. "My belief in our responsibility to develop Benham West after the drastic urban renewal of the 1970s dismantled whole neighborhoods has not diminished nor has my concern about the not so veiled bigotry of some citizens of this community," Kesim said in 1982, when she proposed a cheaper park the City Council rejected. "Such bigotry is childish, pathetic and indicative of minds crippled by hatred." That same year, the City Council approved a spending plan that did not include the park. Benham West residents showed up in protest. One was quoted in the paper saying, "You are against our black skins." 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"You get politicians paying lip-service to the idea of redevelopment every 5 to 10 years without much follow through," said Pitts, the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary professor. "Around 2000, a city redevelopment official was quoted in the paper saying, more or less, 'I guess it wasn't enough to just tear things down, there should have been a plan.'" The city's poor track record has led to deep skepticism for some that Elkhart will ever fulfill its promise of revitalizing the area. "One of the bigger problems we have in this city is we have meetings, and at the end of the meetings, you know what we have?" asked former Benham West resident Plez Lovelady. "Nothing but a bunch of dirty coffee cups." When he was elected mayor six years ago, Roberson found there were comprehensive development plans for several areas of Elkhart. But there still was none for Benham West. "The lack of being able to provide a comprehensive plan in order to grow that area and to do the right things in that area is political failure," he said. "It's also the failure of a community to be engaged in the process as well. It's important that I'm held accountable to do what I should be doing in those areas. But it's also important for us to be able to give the community something that it can rally around." The city now has a long-term redevelopment plan in which stakeholders have a say in what they want their neighborhood to become, Roberson said. It involves creating community assets, both in Benham West and in the surrounding neighborhood south of the tracks, that would help raise property values and draw developers to the area. One of those assets is a new 30,000-square-foot center named after two Black community leaders. The Tolson Center for Community Excellence is equipped with two gyms, a dance and exercise room, a computer and arcade room, an art center, a cafeteria with an industrial kitchen and other venues that host various programs for children. There's ongoing construction outside for a soccer field, playground, and basketball and pickleball courts. About a mile south is another recently opened center that helps adults earn a high school diploma and provides job training. Next door is the neighborhood's new and only health center. The two facilities are located in a large shopping mall the city hopes to turn into a commercial and residential area. Rebuilding the area will be a long, "tedious process," Roberson said. "But it's one with a plan," he said. "And it's one that we're going to continue to stay with as long as I'm here."
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Four executions are scheduled in four states over four days this week. Here's what we know
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If all six proceed as planned, it would mark 25 executions this year to date, matching the total number of executions carried out in 2024, according to data from the Death Penalty Information Center. That would be the highest number of executions carried out through June since 2011. One reason for the rise is the renewed interest in executions in states that have not carried them out for years, experts said. Arizona, Louisiana and Tennessee have all resumed executions in 2025 after hiatuses. South Carolina and Indiana did the same in 2024. The states are acting independently. But their moves come as Trump has signaled a desire to see capital punishment used more often at the federal level, saying he wants to deter criminals and protect the American people. While his day one executive order, 'Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety,' does not apply to the states, experts said the message it sends could encourage state officials who want to align themselves with the president. 'If a state is inclined to conduct executions anyway, Trump's rhetoric would be the wind behind them pushing them to do that,' said Corinna Lain, a University of Richmond law professor and author of 'Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection.' The executive order also has an overt connection to a case this week: an Oklahoma execution is moving forward because Attorney General Pam Bondi, citing Trump's executive order, approved a transfer of the inmate from federal custody to the state – a request the Biden administration previously denied. CNN has reached out to the White House for comment. Matt Wells, deputy director of Reprieve US, an organization that opposes the death penalty, called this a 'dark time in US capital punishment.' Aside from the resumption of executions in some states, he pointed to states' issues with lethal injection and the advent of alternative execution methods, like nitrogen gas, and the resumption of executions in states that have not put anyone to death in years. 'Yet through his executive order on the death penalty,' Wells said, 'President Trump has sent a strong signal to states to push forward with executions.' Here's what we know about the four inmates facing execution this week: Alabama inmate Gregory Hunt has been on death row for more than 30 years. On Tuesday, he is expected to be executed via nitrogen hypoxia. Alabama became the first state to ever use the method in the execution of Kenneth Smith, which took about 15 minutes to complete. Hunt's execution would be the fifth by nitrogen hypoxia in the state, and the second execution by nitrogen hypoxia this year, according to a spokesperson for Gov. Kay Ivey's office. Hunt – one of the 156 people on death row in the state – killed Karen Lane in the early hours of August 2, 1988, according to court documents. The two had been dating for about a month prior to her death. Lane was found with 60 injuries to her body, including lacerations and bruises to her head, body and organs, documents say. She also had a dozen fractured ribs, a fractured breastbone and evidence suggested she had been sexually assaulted. Hunt is representing himself in court, according to a spokesperson with the Alabama Attorney General's office. Florida inmate Anthony Wainwright has been on death row for roughly 30 years for killing a woman after he and another man escaped from prison in 1994 in Newport, North Carolina. The two escapees stole a green Cadillac and burglarized weapons from a home before driving to Lake City, Florida, according to court documents. While in Lake City, the pair stole another car because the Cadillac was starting to overheat, documents say. The pair drove into a supermarket parking lot and spotted Carmen Gayheart, who was loading groceries into a Ford Bronco. They decided to take her car – first forcing her to get inside it at gunpoint – and drove to a wooded area where they 'raped, strangled, and executed' her with one of the stolen guns, court documents say. CNN has reached out to an attorney for Wainwright for comment. Wainwright's co-conspirator died in 2023, according to The Florida Department of Corrections. Wainwright is expected to be executed via lethal injection Tuesday. Gayheart's sister, Maria David, who attended every day of Wainwright's original trial, said the victim was a devoted mother of two who was beautiful inside and out. 'She loved those kids like nothing else, devoted wife. She was going to be an incredible nurse had she been left to live for the rest of her life,' David said. David, who also runs a Facebook page in her sister's honor, said she will be in attendance for Wainwright's execution, as will other family members. 'This is just going to be closure for the legal aspect of Carmen's case,' David said. 'It doesn't bring closure for me, and I don't think any member of my family, by any means, because we're always going to live with the loss of Carmen.' Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed seven death warrants in the first half of 2025, according to his office – if the two executions scheduled for June go forward, that would be just one short of the state's record of eight executions in a single year since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. John Hanson faces execution Thursday for the fatal shooting of Mary Bowles in August 1999, according to an Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals opinion outlining the case. According to prosecutors, Hanson and his co-defendant, Victor Miller, carjacked and kidnapped Bowles at a Tulsa mall, then drove her to a 'dirt pit' outside the city. There, prosecutors say, Hanson's co-defendant shot the man who owned the pit, Jerald Thurman, and Hanson fatally shot the 77-year-old woman. Hanson's attorneys contest this: They say there is evidence Miller was Bowles' true killer, having confessed to pulling the trigger while in prison. Additionally, Miller is now serving a life sentence after his death sentence was overturned – a glaring sentencing disparity given he is, according to Hanson's attorneys, more culpable than their client. They also argue that federal law was misinterpreted to facilitate Hanson's execution. While he has a death sentence in Oklahoma, Hanson has also been serving a federal life sentence for a robbery. Three years ago, Oklahoma officials asked the Bureau of Prisons to transfer Hanson to state custody so his execution could be carried out. The agency – then under the stewardship of the Biden administration – said no; it would not be in the 'public interest' because he hadn't completed his federal sentence. Oklahoma officials made the request again earlier this year, three days after Trump took office. This time, the administration – specifically Attorney General Pam Bondi – said yes, court records show. The transfer, she found, would comply with the executive order Trump signed on his first day in office, 'Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety,' and promote 'state and federal cooperation on capital crimes.' Hanson is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection, a spokesperson for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections told CNN. Bowles' family has voiced support for the execution to move forward. Her niece, Sara Parker Mooney, remembered her aunt, a lifelong Tulsa resident, as an active member of her community and a mentor to professional women: 'She was the matriarch of our family. She was truly beloved.' 'Mary's murder was indescribably difficult then, and it still is now,' she wrote. 'We have been worn out by the multiple trials, re-trials, and appeals. We find ourselves disappointed and angry with the machinations of the judicial system and the political aspects of the last years. We are ready to be done with this matter.' Stephen Stanko faces execution Friday for the 2005 murder of Henry Lee Turner, though he also has a second death sentence for the murder of Laura Ling. Stanko's execution warrant is tied to Turner's murder, because the inmate had exhausted his appeals in that case, the South Carolina Department of Corrections said in a notice announcing his execution date. On April 7, 2005, Stanko murdered Ling, his girlfriend, the notice says. He also raped her daughter, who was at a minor at the time, and slit her throat – though she survived. Afterwards, Stanko went to Turner's home, where he shot and killed the 74-year-old before stealing his truck and fleeing. Stanko was arrested days later. Henry Turner's son remembered his father as a 'helper,' who was willing to lend a hand to anyone, including the man who killed him. 'He was my best friend,' said Roger Turner. While Roger supports Stanko's execution, he told CNN he had forgiven the inmate for murdering his father. But he wishes the execution had taken place sooner, lamenting the two-decade cycle of appeals that would periodically reignite interest in Stanko's case – and force him to revisit his father's killing time and again. 'Here it is, 20 years later, and I'm still reliving it. I'm still hearing the guy's name,' said Roger Turner. He intends to attend the execution. Should it move ahead, Stanko will be executed by lethal injection, a spokesperson for the South Carolina Department of Corrections told CNN. South Carolina inmates can choose their method of execution, with the electric chair and the firing squad as the other available options. CNN has reached out to Ling's daughter and Stanko's attorney for comment.
