Coffin for sale on Craigslist — with a surprise inside

By Sophia Rosenbaum Iowa police have a bone to pick with a local man who’s trying to sell a coffin on Craigslist. Dave Burgstrum, from Council Bluffs, Iowa, is selling an oak coffin for $12,000 on Craigslist to help fund the now-defunct Council Bluffs chapter of the International Order of Odd Fellows, a fraternity that advocates for giving money to the poor, according to The Associated Press. But there’s a catch: there’s a skeleton inside the coffin. In his Craigslist ad, posted June 20, Burgstrum did not mention the human remains inside the coffin. Instead, he describes the coffin as “in very good condition” with bronze handles and lined with silk. He told the AP the coffin was used in the past for the group’s rituals and that the bones had been in there for a long time. “They were just there as long as anyone could remember,” he said. Council Bluffs Police detective Michael Roberts told the AP that human remains cannot be sold if they are unidentified. "If they had papers of origination, then they would be OK to own," Roberts said. Burgstrum said lodge records show the skeleton was donated by a doctor in the 1880s. The remains were sent to the Iowa State Medical Examiner’s Laboratory, but it is unlikely that the remains will be identified, the AP reported. But Burgstrum doesn’t care what happens to the bones. He just wants to sell the coffin and preserve what he can for his organization. “I'm ready to wheel and deal on it,” he said. “I'd like to get those taxes paid.”