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An anthropologist who was shopping at a thrift store in Florida was shocked when she came across a real human skull for sale.
After finding the skull in the Halloween section of the store and recognizing it to be human, the anthropologist contacted local police.
According to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, “Detectives responded to the store on North Cleveland Avenue and recovered the skull.
“Based upon the observations of detectives on scene, the skull is believed to be that of a human.”
The store owner told police that it had been in a storage unit that was purchased in September of 2022.
“This is definitely different,” Lee County Sheriff’s Office Captain Anita Iriarte told Newsweek. “We don’t usually get a call from an antique store that there’s a human skull out on the floor.”
Based on the preliminary inspection, Iriarte confirmed that it was real human remains.
“It was found in a Halloween section,” Iriarte said. “What’s been described is that the antique shop was having a fossil day, so this female, an anthropologist, was shopping and noticed the skull and then was like, ‘This is definitely not a Halloween decoration.'”
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office said the District 21 Medical Examiner’s Office will perform testing on the skull, but that the “case is not suspicious in nature.”
Iriarte also said it is believed to be about 75 years old and that there was no visible trauma. Speculation is that it may be Native American.
Following medical examiner’s examination, the skull will be sent to Gainesville for long-term testing to determine where it came from, how old it is and anything else that can be learned.
Surprisingly, this is far from the first time a real human skull has turned up at a thrift shop.
Just this past September, Goodwill store employees in the Phoenix area discovered a skull covered in spots with its upper front teeth attached, and a false eye in the left socket had been donated.
In 2014, another human skull was donated to a Goodwill store in Austin, Texas.
“This is at least the fourth skull to be donated to the international nonprofit this summer,” the report stated. “Three were donated in July to a Goodwill store in Bellevue, Washington.”