Looting Charges Upgraded Couple’s Home Contained Artifacts From Burial Ground

An Oregon couple whose home was a cache for 30,000 artifacts face felony charges of disturbing an Indian burial ground in Benton County, a deputy prosecutor said.

John Joseph Horner Jr., 48, and Leona J. Lightle, 42, of Irrigon, Ore., were scheduled for arraignment today in Superior Court.

Horner and Lightle originally were charged with disturbing an archaeological site. They pleaded innocent on June 23.

But deputy prosecutor John Jensen said the charges would be upgraded to a felony, disturbing a burial ground, which is punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Investigators were uncertain how many of the artifacts found in the couple’s home came from the Columbia River burial site in Benton County.

“This obviously was an operation where these people took a lot of time to collect these artifacts,” Jensen said.

Investigators would not publicly speculate on the couple’s plans for the items.

There is no telephone listing for a John Horner in Irrigon. The number for Lightle is not published.

Lt. John Hodge of the Benton County sheriff’s office said at least 30,000 artifacts have been recovered from the home, including arrowheads, spearheads, stone tools, stone fragments and beads. Most of the items were in the basement in boxes, buckets and display cases.

The stockpile was a “better collection than most museums would have, outside of the Smithsonian,” Hodge said.

The ancient burial ground is protected from disturbance under an 1855 treaty between the Umatilla and Yakama tribes and the U.S. government.

“A very disgusting amount of artifacts has been removed from this site,” said Jeff Van Pelt, a cultural resource protection specialist with the Umatilla tribe’s department of natural resources.

He said a lot of the items recovered were artifacts for which there is no market, such as chip stones.

“These people are not quite as experienced as looters and robbers who just take saleable items from the sites,” Van Pelt said.

He said there is a big black market, particularly in Europe, for Indian skulls and skeletons and cultural items.

Benton County is home to some 1,200 known Indian archaeological sites.