A woman who planned to sell human toes on an online black market after dogs regurgitated them has pleaded guilty to her ghoulish crime.
Joanna Kathlyn Kinman was employed at a Victorian animal shelter as a ranger when two dogs vomited up the toes and other remains in February 2024.
The dogs had been surrendered to the shelter after the death of their owner, whose name is suppressed.
The man died of natural causes before his pets had eaten parts of his body.
Kinman faced Ringwood Magistrates Court today, where she pleaded guilty to offensive conduct involving human remains.
The 48-year-old was not required to speak during her appearance and was supported by her 17-year-old son.
Prosecutor Melissa Sambrooks said Kinman was not present when the dogs regurgitated the remains, but searched a wheelie bin looking for the toes.
“She located two human toes and took them home and placed them in a jar containing formaldehyde,” Leading Senior Constable Sambrooks said.
Later, during a phone call with her daughter, Kinman discussed how she planned to sell the toes online and research suggested she could get as much as $400.
Police soon arrived at her Lilydale home after a tip-off from an unknown source.
Kinman made full admissions to possessing the remains and intending to sell them online.
She showed police where the jar with the toes was located, beside other oddities including an alligator claw, a bird skull, guinea pig trotter and her childrens’ teeth.
Police found the mother-of-five was a member of the “Bone Buddies Australia” Facebook group, commonly used to buy, swap and sell specimens online.
Snr Const Sambrooks said Kinman was an avid contributor to the site and had previously sold “wet specimens” of a stillborn kitten and puppy.
She did not say where those remains were sourced.
During her police interview, Kinman told officers she was curious about the toes and took them because “I know someone who collects weird things… I thought ‘cool’ its a toe”.
Many of the dead man’s relatives are unaware of the crime, with his son choosing to shield them from the investigation, saying his family had already suffered enough.
Kinman’s lawyer Rainer Martini told Magistrate Andrew Sim his client had also been impacted by her “spontaneous” crime.
He said she lost her job and had her name spread online by a community which was “unsurprisingly repulsed by her behaviour”.
“She has regretted fulsomely … not just for herself but for the impact on the family of the deceased,” Martini said today.
Sim said it was “hardly surprising” Kinman, who had studied psychology as well as animal science, lost her job over the “entirely odd behaviour”.
“I find it remarkable that someone of the accused experience and education would not know it was an offence,” he told the court.
“It’s astounding that she didn’t understand taking two toes that had been vomited up by one or two dogs from a deceased person and sell them on the internet was the wrong thing to do.
“I’m still struggling to understand – it’s astonishing – her behaviour.”
Sim adjourned the hearing until Kinman could be assessed for a community corrections order.
The maximum penalty for the charge is two years in prison, but both the prosecutor and Kinman’s lawyer agreed she should be assessed for a corrections order.
She is expected to be sentenced later today.
Kinman gave no comment to media outside court.
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