Only in America. (I hope)

kaizersoze

Four charged with US body thefts

24 February 2006 09:00
Four men have been charged in the US with stealing bones and body parts from more than 1,000 corpses and selling them for medical transplants.

Those charged include a dentist and the owner of a funeral home in Brooklyn, New York.

Prosecutors say the accused made millions of dollars from selling body parts harvested from corpses obtained from the funeral home.

The body of the BBC Broadcaster Alistair Cooke, who died in 2004 aged 95, was among those stolen by the gang.


The men allegedly replaced the bones of their victims with PVC piping so that their theft would not be noticed at a funeral.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0224/body.html
What next?

lostexpectation

i never heard of bone donor?
do they give people dead people bones?

look at this guys report on it bizarre

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/chi-0602020171feb02,0,4762182.column?coll=ny-top-headlines

seamus

Stolen children's pituatary glands anyone? (OK, slightly different, but...)

franksm

Bet it happens all over, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Ghouls

Reminds me of that movie Coma

AngryBadger

Not to be flippant, but who would be in such dire straits that the organs/bones of a 95-year old would actually be an improvement?

Ruaidhri

kaizersoze wrote:

What next?

At a guess i'd say cheaper (lower quality) skin grafts.

franksm

Or handbags ?
"I can't believe it's not elephant skin"

Sam Vimes

used to be very widespread. some vary old cemeteries in ireland have guard towers to stop people robbing corpses. before the days when you could leave your body to medical science, doctors used to pay good money for corpses to train on

BaZmO*

I'd say it happens in a lot of other countries besides America.

More on the story below...

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article347442.ece

Apparently the Dentist involved had been stuct off and which he started up his firm, Biomedical Tissue Services. Surely they have some kind of vetting process before you could set up a company like that?

The_Minister

franksm wrote:

Or handbags ?
"I can't believe it's not elephant skin"

constitutionus

seamus wrote:

Stolen children's pituatary glands anyone? (OK, slightly different, but...)

ah come on now man, theres no comparison to this story, no one in this country would go to jail