“This is a horror story. It’s just unbelievable! This story is unbelievable,” said Troy Harp, who is one of over 30 plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the facility.
The Biological Resource Center in Phoenix masqueraded as a scientific research facility, where families sent the remains of their loved ones in the public-spirited hope that their bodies would lead to a better understanding of deadly diseases.
In fact, it was a sordid chop shop. (Great VIDEO TV News item here.) They sold the body parts for profit, lied to the families and sent them ashes they are now not sure belonged to their relatives. They were disrespectful and abused the corpses. It’s a great lesson that not all is as it appears and we should ALWAYS check EVERYTHING.
STORY: The FBI conducted a raid in hazmat suits back in 2014, but only now is the testimony from the FBI agents who conducted the raid available. And the report is shocking.
A head sewn onto a mismatched body, a bucket of limbs and a cooler filled with penises are among items found by the FBI agents during a raid on a Phoenix body-donation business.
One agent said he found a “cooler filled with penises,” “a bucket of heads, arms and legs,” “infected heads” and a small woman’s head sewn onto a large male torso “like Frankenstein” hanging up on the wall, one of the most disturbing findings called a “morbid joke” in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also says the bodies were cut up with chain saws and band saws and “pools of human blood and bodily fluids were found on the floor of the freezer” with no identification tags on the bodies.
Here’s what he saw, according to the Arizona Republic and KTVK’s reporting from court documents:
- A “bucket of heads, arms, and legs.”
- A “cooler filled with male genitalia.”
- A woman’s head sewn onto a larger male torso, like “Frankenstein,” hanging on a wall.
- “Infected heads.” It’s not entirely clear what this means.
- Bodies that had been cut up with chainsaws and bandsaws. The bodies didn’t have ID tags.
- “Pools of human blood and other bodily fluids” on the freezer floor.
A 2013 price list included in the civil court filing indicates a whole boy with no shoulders or head could be purchased for $2,900 while a whole spine retailed for $950.
The owner was sentenced to one year of deferred jail time, four years probation and was ordered to pay $121,000 in restitution. but is likely to fare worse at the hands of the relatives in their civil suits which are upcoming.
Be Alert
2015 Body Donation Investigation
The Detroit Division of the FBI is conducting an investigation into the activities of the following human body donation companies/programs:
- Biological Resource Center (Phoenix, Arizona)
- Biological Resource Center of Illinois (Rosemont/Schiller Park, Illinois)
- International Biological, Inc. (Detroit, Michigan)
- Arthroscopy Association of North America (Schiller Park, Illinois)
- Anatomical Service, Inc. (Schiller Park, Illinois)
If you or your organization acquired human anatomical material from any of these companies or if you were involved in the donation of a loved one to any of these organizations, we would like your assistance in obtaining more information that will aid in the investigation.
To obtain critical information from the next-of-kin of body donors in this case and from end users of the human anatomical material, we ask that you complete the below online questionnaire relevant to your situation.
Due to the large number of donor families and end users potentially affected, the FBI will only contact respondents who indicate that they would like to be contacted. Regardless, the questionnaires will allow us to compile valuable information in this case. We greatly appreciate your assistance.
If you have further questions, please send e-mails to [email protected].
Reacting to the Biological Resource Center case, Arizona passed a law in 2017 that says body donation companies are not allowed without a state license. However, the law has not yet been implemented or enforced.
All four body donation companies known to be operating in Arizona are accredited by the American Association of Tissue Banks, which the Biological Resource Center was not.