New York Daily NewsINDIANAPOLIS — FBI agents on Thursday were still removing thousands of artifacts ranging from arrowheads to shrunken heads and Ming Dynasty jade from a house in rural central Indiana.
A 91-year-old man amassed the vast collection over several decades, perhaps since he began digging up arrowheads as a child.
People who had toured Don Miller’s Rush County home years before the FBI’s arrival Wednesday described it as a homemade museum containing diverse items including fossils, Civil War memorabilia and what the owner claimed to be a chunk of concrete from the bunker in which Adolf Hitler committed suicide toward the end of World War II.
COURTESY OF THE RUSHVILLE REPUBLICAN Donald Miller would give schoolchildren tours of his amateur museum of cultural curiosities that also included fossils and Civil War memorabilia. He had a pipe organ upstairs he would play for guests.Agents of the FBI’s art crime team began loading trucks with artifacts that Donald Miller acquired over the decades from sites as varied as China, Russia and New Guinea. However, the FBI was careful not to say whether they believed Miller had knowingly broken any laws. The FBI’s aim is to catalog the artifacts and return them to their countries of origin.
“We’re collecting and analyzing with the goal of repatriation,” FBI Special Agent Drew Northern said.
The laws regarding the removal or collection of cultural artifacts are extremely complex. State, federal and international laws are involved, Patty Gerstenblith, a professor of law at DePaul University in Chicago. Much depends on whether objects are considered stolen or were imported with a license, and international treaties dating back as far as 1987 come into play. The United States has various agreements with 15 countries that prohibit importation of items that were illegally acquired, she said, and some nations such as Egypt forbid the export of any cultural objects that were dug from the ground.
Phone calls to a number listed in Miller’s name rang busy or out of service Thursday.
It wasn’t immediately clear how Miller acquired some of the items, but those who know him said he had been collecting since childhood.
KELLY WILKINSON/APThe FBI agents did not say if Miller broke any laws, but they loaded several trucks on Thursday with thousands of Miller’s artifacts to catalog and return to the countries of origin. Miller was known as a world traveler, and those who know him said his visitors included Australian aborigines.
Miller made no secret of his collection, those who know him said. He took schoolchildren on tours of his amateur museum, which even contained human remains, they said. A 150-foot underground tunnel linking two homes on Miller’s property in Rush County, a rural Indiana area whose largest city has a population of about 6,000 people, was adorned with a 60-foot, 4-foot-wide anaconda snakeskin, Runnebohm said. Carefully labeled glass showcases boasted hundreds of Native American arrowheads, along with human skulls — including one with an arrowhead stuck in it. Upstairs was a pipe organ that Miller played for visitors.
“He never tried to hide anything,” Runnebohm said. “Everything he had he was real proud of, and he knew what everything was.”
Human skulls with an arrow sticking out ? Concrete from Hitler’s suicide bunker? All for the “little children’s” to see? The old fart sounds like a creep to me. No wonder some parent turned him in to the FBI. With that said ..if our FBI is so concerned with items being shipped in to this country illegally why aren’t they doing anything about the Opium being shipped in from Afghanistan? Oh…I forgot….that would be stepping on the toes of the CIA and their profits.
They raided a 90yr old man for bringing back trinkets? why didn’t they raid Holder when he sent all those guns to Mexico??
With multiple trailers and multiple tents so no one outside can see what’s going on, I’m thinking that the feds are stealing more than just artifacts. I also doubt that the artifacts will be sent back to their places of origin, more likely to some multimillionaire or billionaire’s private collection, because, you know, the peasants, even the well to do ones, are not allowed to have collections of things of beauty or odd or macabre interest. But then I’m just a conspiracy nut.
I love it apparently the FBI can just decide that something is “theirs.”
When we do this its called theft. And to a 90 year old man no less its
disgusting.
I wish the powers that be would spend more time rounding up illegal aliens and returning them to their countries of origin!
Not to mention he helped develop the nuclear bomb.
Personally I think he’s just at his end of life and wanted the artifacts to go where they belong…as I understand it, either his daughter called the authorities for him or he did…the story twists with every update. Some say he has no children ….but it’s turned into kind of a big deal here.
I have a friend who lives just a few miles from him. It was first reported the FBI raided him. then it was voluntary…who knows really.
you’d think these thugs would have better things to do..oh but they might be a bit more risky then thugging a 90 year old for some older than dirt trinkets
What they are doing is frightening. They are looking for the bones of ancient giants so they can clone those things. It’s going to be a nightmare bringing those things back. American Indian legend says those monsters could outrun a horse and carry off any large buffalo. The archeological community has been warning people for years. If they find anything take pictures right away, keep quiet and hide everything or they will get raided like this guy did. Then everything disappears.