ARKANSAS, USA — According to court documents, a Pennsylvania man was arrested for having buckets of human remains he reportedly bought illegally from an Arkansas woman on Facebook.
Jeremy Pauley, 40, was charged after East Pennsboro Township Police (EPTP) executed a search warrant when a caller reported that Pauley had buckets of "human skin" and "human organs" in his basement, according to documents obtained by our Pennsylvania affiliate WPMT.
During the course of the investigation, police were able to determine that Pauley allegedly purchased remains from Candance Scott, a woman in Arkansas, over Facebook messenger.
Those messages showed Scott had sold Pauley several human remains for $4,000, including:
- half a human head
- one whole human head minus the skull cap
- three human brains with skull caps
- a human heart
- a human liver
- a human lung
- human kidneys (2)
- a human female pelvis
- a piece of human torso including a nipple
- human hands (4)
The body parts were shipped and sent to Pauley via U.S. Postal Service, EPTP police say. According to Pennsylvania investigators, Arkansas authorities discovered Scott was stealing the remains from a mortuary owned by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) and sending them to Pauley to be resold.
The remains belonged to the University of Arkansas, documents state.
Pauley allegedly admitted to buying the items from Scott and re-selling them on Facebook for profit.
Pauley has been charged with abuse of a corpse, receiving stolen property, and dealing in proceeds of unlawful activities.
Arkansas law enforcement agencies have not said what charges Scott faces. On Thursday, UAMS released the following statement:
We have a contract with Arkansas Central Mortuary Services to take the bodies for cremation after they are no longer being used by our students. An employee of the mortuary service is under investigation by federal authorities for taking some human remains from the mortuary that were donated to UAMS. We are saddened and appalled that this happened.
5NEWS has also reached out to the FBI, who said this is still an active investigation.
We will update this article with more information as it becomes available.