Former Park Super Gets Home Detention in Bone Theft

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — A retired National Park Service official has been sentenced to one year of home detention and 10 weekends in jail for stealing a collection of human remains of Native Americans who died hundreds of years ago.

A judge on Friday (today, July 8) sentenced Thomas Munson, former superintendent of Effigy Mounds National Monument in northeast Iowa.

The monument includes animal-shaped burial mounds considered sacred by many affiliated tribes.

Following excavations last century, the monument maintained a collection of bones and fragments tied to more than 40 individuals buried there. The 76-year-old Munson has admitted that he stole the bones in 1990 and kept them in his garage for two decades in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.

Investigators say he was concerned about a law requiring remains and burial objects to be returned to tribes.