FL Shop Owners Bought, Sold Human Bones Online, Police Say

ORANGE CITY, FL — Two women were arrested for buying and selling human bones on Facebook Marketplace for their oddities shop in Orange City, Wicked Wonderland, court records show.

Kymberlee Schopper, 51, and Ashley Schopper, 32, both of Deltona, were charged with purchasing and selling human organs or tissue, according to police affidavits.

Kymberlee was arrested Thursday, while Ashley was taken into custody on Friday.

The investigation into the shop began Dec. 21, 2023, after police received a report that she was advertising various human bones for sale on her business’ Facebook page.

Detectives saw human remains, including two skull fragments, a clavicle and scapula (collar bone and shoulder blade, respectively), a rib, a vertebrae, and a partial skull listed for sale on her shop’s website, police said.

An officer who visited the shop spoke with Ashley, who identified herself with the last name Lelesi and said she was one of the owners. Her arrest records list her last name as Schopper.

She told police they had been selling human bones bought from private sellers for several years and they didn’t know that it was prohibited to sell them under Florida law. She said that she had documentation about these purchases but didn’t have immediate access to it.

The officer took the bones and brought them to the Medical Examiner’s Office for testing.

Investigators later met with Kymberlee and Ashley at the Orange County Police Department at their request, the affidavit said. Schopper brought documents from PayPal about their purchases of human bones with some information redacted and told police they would need a warrant if more information was needed.

They told investigators “that they are very familiar with Florida laws and understand that the wording of these laws specifically applies to viable tissues, which provides protection for educational models,” which they claimed the bones were, the affidavit said.

The women also became upset when police wouldn’t return the bones taken from their shop or give them a copy of the original police report. They were told how they could request a copy of the report.

A forensic anthropology analysis and a medical examiner’s report of two human bone fragments taken from Wicked Wonderland show that one “is likely of archaeological origin” and is about 570 years old, according to the affidavit.

The other “is possibly an anatomical model” and “likely did not originate from a burial environment,” the affidavit said. It’s likely about 140 years old.