Man pleads guilty to abuse of Indian children’s corpses

MEDFORD, Ore. – Former insurance agent Jack Harelson pleaded guilty Tuesday to abusing the mummified corpses of two Indian children that police found in his garden, where he had hidden them after digging up their ancient graves in the Nevada desert in the 1980s.

Standing tightlipped in green jail coveralls and plastic sandals, Harelson, 64, answered only, “Yes,” when asked by Jackson County Circuit Judge Lorenzo Mejia if he wanted to plead guilty to two counts of abuse of a corpse.

Prompted by his defense lawyer, Harelson acknowledged that he had treated the corpses in a manner not accepted by the norms of society. He made no mention of how the skulls came to be separated from the rest of the corpses, or where they have been in the years since his 1995 arrest on charges he robbed Indian graves of artifacts.

Harelson still faces trial on charges alleging he tried to pay an undercover police informant $10,000 in opals to kill the police detective and judge who sent him to jail in 1996, and two business partners who put investigators on his trail.

Jury selection was scheduled to begin today in Jackson County Circuit Court on the remaining charges of criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, solicitation to commit murder and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Jackson County Deputy District Attorney Timothy Barnack said he hoped to win a sentence of 10 to 20 years in prison if Harelson is convicted of the remaining charges.

By pleading guilty to abuse of a corpse, Harelson has avoided the inclusion in the rest of his trial of emotional testimony or evidence about the skulls of the two mummified children being separated from the rest of the remains.