TIPTON, Ind. – A human skeleton is making the transition from apparent Halloween decoration to research tool.

The skeleton, nestled in a black coffin draped with fake spider webs, sold for $500 at an auction Tuesday.

Richards’ Auction Gallery sold the item to a Tipton resident who agreed to donate it to a forensics center for research, said Anita Mattingly, fiancee of auctioneer Tim Richards.

Richards found the skeleton among items he collected for the auction. The bones, which were wired together, had apparently been someone’s macabre decoration.

Mail allegedly stored by former postal worker found

DETROIT – A former postal worker has been charged with stealing thousands of pieces of mail that authorities say she had kept in a storage unit northwest of Detroit.

More than 9,000 pieces of mail have been recovered from a storage unit in Fowlerville, federal investigators said Tuesday. Authorities allege that Jill Hull admitted storing the mail because she couldn’t deliver it on time. Some mail has postmarks from 2005.

Hull quit her job in August, about three weeks before the mail was discovered.

Hull could not be reached for comment.

From Associated Press reports