A 23-year-old Indiana man pleaded guilty on Wednesday to breaking into a medical museum and stealing preserved human brains and other tissue that he then sold online, authorities said. 
 
 David Charles, of Indianapolis, pleaded guilty to six charges including receiving stolen property, and burglary in a Marion County court where Magistrate Amy Barbar sentenced him to one year of home detention and two years of probation, county prosecutor spokesman Anthony Deer said. 
 
 Charles on multiple occasions broke into the Indiana Medical History Museum to steal jars of brains and other human tissue, according to Marion County prosecutor's office. 
 
 The museum is a former hospital for the insane founded in 1848 and later converted into a museum with an autopsy room and anatomical museum that displays preserved specimens, mostly brains, organized by pathology. 
 
 Charles was arrested in December 2013 after a San Diego man who bought six jars of brain material for $600 on eBay alerted police, according to court documents. Many of the items Charles sold were recovered when the San Diego man matched the items he bought to those stolen from the museum based on research he did online, according to court documents. 
 
 Investigators were able to identify Charles partly because he left behind in the museum a piece of paper with his bloody fingerprint on it, according to court documents. They recovered 80 jars of human tissue, according to court documents. 
 
 Charles, who was ordered to stay away for the museum, also stole an EKG machine, about 10 scopes, a baby scale and other miscellaneous historical items from the museum, Deer said. 
 
 Charles must also earn a high school diploma or GED certificate per the agreement, Deer said. 
 
 (Reporting by Kim Palmer in Cleveland; Editing by Ben Klayman and Sandra Maler) 

 An Indianapolis man who admitted to stealing brains from a museum and selling them on eBay has received a four-year sentence. 
 
 Buy Photo Human brains at the Indiana Medical History Museum (Photo: Indianapolis Star)Buy Photo 
 
 An Indianapolis man who admitted to stealing brains from a museum and selling them on eBay has received a four-year sentence for the crime. 
 
 Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry announced Wednesday that David Charles, 23, pleaded guilty to breaking into the Indiana Medical History Museum several times in 2013 to steal jars of human brain tissue and other human tissue. 
 
 After fleeing with the brains, authorities said Charles sold the stolen items, which were then resold on eBay. Court documents said a crime scene specialist with the Indianapolis-Marion County Forensic Services Agency recovered evidence from the crime scene, including a white piece of paper that contained a fingerprint in blood. 
 
 David Charles (Photo: Provided by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.) 
 
 The IMPD Latent Print division determined that the print was consistent with the left pinkie finger of Charles. 
 
 Police also were contacted by the buyer, a San Diego man who purchased six of the jars online for $600, after the buyer noticed labels on the containers and suspected wrongdoing. 
 
 Detectives used that tip to trace the transactions and spoke to an eBay seller who provided the brain tissue to the man in San Diego. That seller said he got the brains from Charles. 
 
 Charles was arrested Dec. 16, 2013, when the eBay seller arranged a meeting in the parking lot of a Southside Dairy Queen with Charles. The day before the meeting, Charles stole 60 jars of human tissue from the museum, court documents said. 
 
 The museum, 3045 W. Vermont St., is on the site of the former Central State Hospital, which served patients with psychiatric and mental disorders from 1848 to 1994. Doctors autopsied some of those patients, and kept their remains perserved in jars, to learn more about mental illness. 
 
 Three years of Charles' four-year sentence were suspended to be served with Marion County Community Corrections. He will spend one year on home detention, two years on probation and is required to obtain a high school diploma or GED. 
 
 Call Star reporter Justin L. Mack at (317) 444-6138. Follow him on Twitter: @justinlmack. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://indy.st/1jk99kj
– A man who stole the preserved brains of mental patients from a former hospital for the insane and sold them on eBay has been sentenced by a judge who wants him to find a less macabre way to make a living. David Charles, 23, was ordered to obtain a high school diploma as part of a four-year sentence that includes one year of home detention and two years of probation, reports Reuters. He was arrested for multiple burglaries at the Indiana Medical History Museum in Indianapolis after a sting operation in Dec. 2013 and, with evidence against him including dozens of recovered jars of brain and a bloody fingerprint he left behind, he pleaded guilty on Wednesday, the Indianapolis Star reports. According to court documents, Charles sold six jars of brains for $600 to a San Diego man who contacted authorities when he noticed the labels on them, reports Reuters. The museum is on the site of the hospital, which treated mental patients from 1848 to 1994. After the theft, museum director Mary Ellen Nottage told the Star that the thefts had boosted attendance at the small museum, which, just a few years earlier, had held an exhibition on the "Gang of Ghouls"—grave robbers who plagued the city early last century, stealing freshly buried corpses to sell for use in medical schools. (A clergyman in Britain has been denied permission to dig up what he believes is William Shakespeare's skull.)