HARRISON COUNTY, Ind. (WDRB) -- To say Jim Schuppert collects some unusual things is an understatement. On Tuesday afternoon, he showed off a sampling of nontraditional artwork.
"My wife — we go out hiking, and we find these little turtle shells, and she makes rattles out of them," he said. "She decorates them with rhinestones."
Other shells were painted with bold acrylic paint, along with two goat skulls. Two snapping turtle skulls were decorated with glitter. Schuppert also showed off case after case of arrowheads and other American Indian artifacts.
"They're everywhere," Schuppert said. "There are thousands of them. Millions of them."
According to state records, Archaic hunters and gatherers lived along the banks of Ohio River in Harrison County thousands of years ago. Schuppert said he fell in love with collecting their relics while deer-hunting near his home south of Corydon.
"I was walking down a riverbank hunting deer and walked up on a fella hunting arrowheads, and he drew me a picture of an arrowhead out on the ground, and I walked down there with him and found one, and I was pretty much hooked after that," he said.
But that hobby and some of the collections it has produced now have Schuppert facing a list of felonies.
Even though Schuppert describes himself as an amateur archaeologist, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources calls him a looter who's pillaged archaeological sites along the Ohio River in Harrison County for years. Officers say they finally caught Schuppert and his wife, Diana Hutchinson, in the act late last week. After numerous reports of illegal digging and criminal trespass along the Ohio River, Indiana DNR said it spotted Schuppert's truck in a field outside Mauckport last Thursday before seeing the same truck at Schuppert's home later in the day.
"I had landowners permission," Schuppert said. "I did not find thousands of relics digging."
DNR said that's not true. While he had permission a long time ago, the agency said he did not have recent permission from private property owners to dig for artifacts, which is illegal in the first place.
Indiana DNR said it also charged Schuppert for manufacturing meth, having ginseng out-of-season and shells from box turtles. Box turtles are a protected species in Indiana.
"We never killed a box turtle, ever," Schuppert said.
Schuppert believes the case against his wife and him is blown out of proportion.
"We're not bad people," he said. "We try to be good people."
He also said the artifacts he's accused of looting are historic but are so common that even museums don't want them.
Jim Schuppert said he fell in love with collecting relics of the Archaic hunters and gathers that lived along the banks of the Ohio River in Harrison County thousands of years ago. (WDRB Photo)
"They're not one-of-a-kind," he argued. "I don't think I've ever found a one-of-a-kind of anything."
DNR tells a different story and said the arrest isn't just a victory against drugs, but it's also a victory in preserving this area's heritage. It also pointed out that Schuppert was profiting off of the looting, since he'd sold some of the artifacts for big prices.
“The taking of protected species and theft of artifacts from public and private land along the Ohio River is illegal," Lower Ohio River Keeper Jason Flickner said. "But the real loss is ultimately the fact you are looting from our archaeological understanding of pre-history and the rights of displaced First Nations people to access and reclaim their land, water and possessions.”
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