Woman charged with trying to sell human foetuses from the 1920s online

Foetuses believed to be of stillborn infants born almost 100 years ago

Stock image of a foetus in utero. This week a Colorado woman was charged with trying to sell the foetuses of stillborn babies from the 1920s (Getty)

A woman has been accused of trying to smuggle three human foetuses from the 1920s into the United Kingdom.

Emily Suzanne Cain labelled the package "school teaching aids and T-shirts, authorities in California said in a written record of the criminal complaint.

But it caught the attention of US Postal Service workers who noticed there was no signature on a customs form to certify the package did not contain dangerous contents

US customs agents said an x-ray of the package at the San Francisco International Airport revealed a human-like shape.

The foetuses are believed to be from stillborn infants from the 1920s that had last been stored in a research lab at a university in Nebraska.

Records showed Ms Cain attempted to mail a package from Canon City in central Colorado to an address in the UK in October 2018.

She was first arrested in Fort Collins and released on a £3,880 bond with a GPS monitor.

Court document allege that Ms Cain had posted on Facebook that she acquired the foetuses from a university lab collection and was selling them for $US 20,000 (£15,520).

She has now been charged with violating a US law prohibiting the transfer of human foetal tissue.

The 38-year-old from Colorado has pleaded not guilty to the charges and will reappear in the US District Court in San Francisco on 20 November.

Officials at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, where the specimens were believed to originate from, have told authorities that its policy was to cremate, not sell, specimens that were no longer required.

Additional reportingby AP