S03E09: Flesh for Sale- A Look into the Body Trade

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello listeners, and welcome back to another episode of Darteed's podcast.
On today's episode, I'm doing something a little different and
I hope to slowly transition to adding more cases like
this to my podcast. This case does not involved murder,
but it involves Darteed's nonetheless. This is the case of
the Biological Resource Center in Arizona and similar body brokerages.

(00:47):
The Biological Resource Center was a for profit company founded
in Phoenix, Arizona, in two thousand and three by owner
Stephen Gore. I have Doug and Dog all around the
web to try to come up with some information about
this man, and oddly enough, as well as this case is,
you'd be pretty hard pressed to find any information about
Stephen Gore and who he was prior to opening BRC.

(01:08):
There's a lot of conspiracy floating around out there as
to why this may be, but I will not really
dive into them too deep, but I will mention them
a little later. The BRC was a nine thousand square
foot one story facility in Phoenix, Arizona, situated near two
interstate highways and the Phoenix Airport. It was what most

(01:29):
people would call a body brokerage, which is not what
donors thought its goal was. I'm going to go off
on a tangent here and explain what a body brokerage
is or a non transplant tissue bank and what the
idea behind them are. So in the United States, organ
donation is a regulated practice by the US Department of Health,
but body donation remains unregulated. So these centers open up

(01:52):
that take body donations where they will sell bodies and
body parts to various other organizations for research and experiments.
Buying and selling bodies is technically a feling, but it's
permissible to charge a reasonable amount to process a body.
Processing involves removal, storage, transportation, and disposal of the body.
The amount charged that's considered reasonable is up for interpretation,

(02:15):
since these organizations make their own internal practices and policies
and their own pricing. There's also no national or global
register to track how many bodies are actually donated for
medical research yearly.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Thousands of people in the US donate.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Their bodies yearly for research, believing that their actions are
charitable and their bodies can help science, but this is
often not the case. Places such as universities are often
pretty transparent on what bodies donated to them are being
used for, such as teaching purposes, but other organizations often
falsify their intentions to the families of the donors. In

(02:49):
the case of the Biological Resource Center in Arizona, this
is exactly what happened. The BRC often exploited low income
families or people they know may not be able to
afford burials or cremations for their family members by offering
free body transportation and cremation in return for, of course,
the donated body. This made the center inviting for those

(03:11):
who could not afford to properly provide after death body
care for their family members. It was determined that the
vast majority of BRC donors came from disadvantaged neighborhoods where
the media and household income fell below the state average.
Four out of five donors had not graduated from college,
which was about twice the ratio of the country as
a whole. They also used deceptive consent forms that misled

(03:33):
these families, who believed their loved ones remains would be
treated with dignity and only be used for ethical research purposes.
These consent forms were often written in technical language that
many donors and relatives found hard to understand these consent
forms gave the BRC the right to dismember the dead
then sell a rent body parts to medical researchers and education,

(03:54):
often for hundreds or thousands of dollars, but instead of
honoring the wishes of the donors, the BRC would dismember
and sell body parts for a profit. A whole body
often sold for five thousand, eight hundred and ninety three
dollars from the BRC. In twenty seventeen, a report from
Reuters revealed that from the year two thousand and five

(04:14):
until early twenty fourteen, the BRC received five thousand bodies
and distributed more than twenty thousand body parts. In twenty fourteen,
the FBI was conducting a multi state investigation into illegal
body trafficking, and the BRC was raided in January of
that year. In the facility, agents found ten tons of

(04:35):
frozen human remains, which of course equates to twenty thousand pounds.
Seven hundred and fifty five body parts were found that
included two hundred and eighty one heads, two hundred and
forty one shoulders, three hundred and thirty seven legs, and
ninety seven spines. And then of course there were other
parts kind of just scattered around within the facility. Several

(04:57):
unsettling scenes were observed, including a torso the head removed
and replaced with a smaller head, which has been compared
to something out of Frankenstein. Body parts were pot on
top of each other with no identification. Buckets and coolers
were filled with various body parts such as heads, arms,
and legs, and other parts were shown about freezers with

(05:17):
no identification as well. Male torsos were observed without limbs
and genitalia, and a cooler it was found containing only
male genitals. Tools such as chainsaws and bandsaws were also
observed which were used to dismember the bodies rather than
using proper tools and procedures. So essentially what would happen

(05:38):
is people there were not properly trained. They would go
to I guess hardware stores and purchase these tools that
they used to dismember the bodies. So it wasn't legitimate
medical equipment like they would use in surgery to amputato
leg or something. And I guess my thought is they
probably figured, well, the person's already dead, we don't have
to do it properly. They're not going to get infection

(06:01):
and things of that nature. So they really treated these
bodies with zero dignity and respect like they had promised
the families that they would. Some agents actually needed to
seek therapy after seeing the gruesome scenes. Family members of
the victims were informed that the donations, if accepted, would
be used solely for medical and scientific research, that donor

(06:24):
bodies would be treated with dignity and respect, and that
donor bodies would not be dismembered or sold for profit.
They were also told that the unused remands of their
family members would be cremated and returned to them. Many
did receive boxes with ashes in, but it's very hard
to tell if the ashes received were even their family members,
since the parts were all commingled and not labeled. A

(06:45):
now well known technician working for the BRCD was thirty
five year old Sam Kazimi, who started a video for
BRC demonstrating how to strip a cervical spine. In the video,
Kazimi was seen wearing a mask, gloves, goggles, and a
surgeic go gown. A body scene lying faced down on
the table and the man's shoulders and arms have already
been cheered off. Kazimi then peels away the man's skin

(07:08):
and scalp. He picks up a construction saw, explaining the
type of blade that should be used so that you
can make sure it's long enough to reach from ear
to ear. This video was twenty four minutes long, and
Kazimi claimed it was instructional and not disrespectful, and later
that he would not be using a saw like this
if it was his choice, because it cannot be properly

(07:29):
clean and gets spread diseases. Kazimi also taught college students
about dissection. At the lab, college students are given pliers
to remove fingernails of the deceased. Oddly enough, Kazimi wasn't
exactly qualified to be working in this lab, as he
had previously been a real estate agent, a waiter, and
a manager for an olive garden. He then went to
college to study kinesiology and was a teaching assistant in

(07:52):
anatomy lab. He was paid twenty one dollars an hour
by the BRC to dismember the bodies. The BRC went
out of business. Its founder, Stephen Gore, pled guilty to fraud,
not for selling the body parts, but for misleading customers
by shipping them contaminated specimens. He also pled guilty to

(08:12):
illegal control of an enterprise for this. His punishment was
only a year of deferred jail time and four years
of probation. In November of twenty nineteen, a civil suit
was filed against the BRC by twenty one families of
the donors. In the civil action file, the plaintiff stated,
the remains are their family members. Of their family members

(08:33):
were obtained through false statements, obtained under the guise that
their loved ones. Bodies would be treated with dignity and
respect and placed with medical and scientific research facilities. Bodies
were even used for ballistics testing by the military, as
well as crash test stummies, and this is not something
that the families agreed to. Several hundred heads had been
shipped to the Middle East on a commercial airline as well.

(08:57):
In the trial, FBI agent Mark quin en Er apologized
for the name pronunciation described the sites he witnessed upon
walking into the facility and investigating Stephen Gore's attorney noted
that all clients signed consent forms granting permission to dissect
the bodies and that it was legal for the facilities
to make a profit. Several family members testified telling their

(09:18):
stories and how the BRC misled them. One such example
was Jim Staufer. Jim's mother, Doris, passed away in hospice
care after suffering from Alzheimer's. Jim donated our body to
the BRC, believing it would be used for medical research
for Alzheimer's. Years later, a reporter from Reuter's contacted Jim
to tell him his mother was actually used in U

(09:40):
S Army blast experiments. It was determined that more than
twenty bodies were sold to the military to be used
in blast experiments. This was done without the consent of
the deceased or next of ken, and some families even
objected to this. On the consent form, Jim learned that
his mother's body was used in an army experiment measuring
the damage caused by roadside bombs. Doing this without permission

(10:02):
from donors is a violation of US Army policy as well.
The BRC sold many bodies to the Army, disclosing to
them that they did have permission from the donors or families,
which was not true. Two more donors were Conrad Patrick
and Leon Small, a seventy one year old retiree who
once managed a furniture factory. On their consent forms, both

(10:22):
men checked boxes stating they did not wish to be
used in military or destructive tests, but their heads and
spines were sold to the army anyway.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
Just days after the two men died, an employee.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
Of BRC contacted their widows to try to convince them
to amend their forms so they could be used for
military testing. Conrad's wife stated that she did not understand
what they were talking about, but she said, okay, So
it sounds to me that the BRC would kind of
take advantage of the grief and they would call the
family members and say, hey, actually, can we use the

(10:52):
body for this instead, And of course the family members
are grieving, they might not be in the right mind,
or they might not even understand what they're talking about,
and they just agree. Another donor was Robert Louis de Rossier,
a casino security employee that died at the age of
sixty four due to diabetes. He donated his body in

(11:12):
hopes that it would be used for diabetes research. His
widow said he had donated his body hoping it might
contribute to diabetes research and did not expect anyone to
make any money from selling his remains. Russell Parker Junior
helped care for his dying brother and was surprised to
learn that his brother's right knee was sold and his
head was offered for sale. Maureen Krueger stated that her

(11:36):
partner of forty two years, Fidel's Silva, told a hospice
worker he wished to be cremated. She asked him if
he would be interested in donating some tissues. Maureene and
Fidel thought only some of his tissue would be donated.
It was explained that he would not be chopped up
or have any organs removed. In return, he would be
cremated for free.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
He agreed.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
Internal BRC records show that Silva's head and his right
and left arms from shoulder to hand were removed and
tagged with tracking numbers to be prepared to sell. The
jury found in favor of ten of the twenty one
plaintiffs who sued the BRC. Some believe they did this
due to others not being present to testify. The jurors
awarded eight point five million dollars in compensation and fifty

(12:18):
million dollars in punitive damages in twenty twenty two an
appellate court reinstated the full fifty eight point nine million
judgment after a trial court had initially reduced the punitive damages.
Following the scandal, Arizona passed the law requiring body donation
companies to be licensed, but the law really hasn't been consistently.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
Enforced to this point.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
Now, I'll get into just a few more smaller brokerage stories.
I know the BRC is the big one, but there's
quite a few other ones. This could actually take you
down a rabbit hole. If I were to put in
here every illegal brokerage in the US that's been caught,
we would be here for a long time.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
But I tried to kind of scan through and.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
Pick Federal authorities had actually began investigating the BRC in
twenty eleven when a Detroit bodybroker from a company called
International Biological Inc. Was stopped by US Customs agents as
he crossed the border from Ontario. He had ten human
heads with him. Agents were able to trace one of
the heads to the BRC in Arizona. Within a year,

(13:21):
investigators identified at least two hundred and fifty suspect body
parts sold by the BRC to this broker, In January
of twenty sixteen, this broker, who was named Arthur Rathburn,
and his wife were arrested by the FBI on fraud
charges related to their practices at International Biological inc. Rathburn
pled not guilty, his wife pled guilty into a single

(13:43):
fraud charge. Rathburn at least human heads, torsos, and other
body parts from medical and dental training in the US, Mexico, Canada, Italy, Greece,
and Israel. Documents also revealed that Rathburn's inventory included more
than one one hundred body parts that were infected with hepatitis, HIV, sepsis, meningitis, MURSA,

(14:05):
and necrotizing faciitis. In March of twenty eighteen, Elizabeth Rathburn,
his wife, was sentenced to two years of probation, while
in May twenty eighteen, he was sentenced to one hundred
and eight months in prison and three years of supervised
release after he gets out. Reuters investigated another body brokerage
known as Restore Life USA. In Tennessee, a twenty four

(14:28):
year old named Cody Saunders passed away of a heart
attack on his way home from dialysis.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
Cody had previously had sixty.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
Six surgeries and more than seventeen hundred rounds of dialysis.
Cody lived with his parents in a motor home at
an East Tennessee campground. He worked on a farm with
his father. When he was well enough. He passed away
on August second, twenty sixteen. His family was two ports
of Burrier cremate him, so they donated their son's body
to Restore Life USA. The facility sells donated bodies whole

(14:56):
or by the part to researchers, universities, medical tre facilities,
and other organizations. Month after Cody died, his neck, his
cervical spine was sold for three hundred dollars plus shipping.
Through an email to a Router's employee, Reuters attempted to
purchase body parts as part of their own investigation. Reuters

(15:18):
purchased two human heads from Restore Life, each priced at
three hundred dollars. Also, Reuter's contacted Angela MacArthur, the director
of the body donation program at the University of Minnesota
Medical School, so she could take custody of the remains.
She was shocked at how easy the body parts were
acquired and just how sloppy and insufficient The medical history
and documentation from Restore Life was she was unable to

(15:41):
actually use the specimens at the university as they did
not meet the standards. The body parts were sold to
routers directly by the owner of Restore Life, fifty year
old James Bird. Cody's spine was delivered in a box
by a FedEx driver. The box contained no label stating
it was human remains. Documents were inside the box certifying
that the donor was free of infectious diseases and a

(16:02):
handwritten summary of his history. Writers later cremated Cody's cervical
spine and delivered the ashes to his family, as the
ashes they received previously were not known to even be Cody's.
Restore Life has not been charged with any wrongdoing and
still remains open to this day, claiming on their website
they are a nonprofit and do not sell your loved
ones bodies or parts, but are paid for transportation, etc.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
For the bodies they donate.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
Right.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
This next case involves the Sunset Masa funeral home, so
a much smaller organization than the ones previously mentioned, but
I wanted to include these as well, just to show
that it doesn't have to be some large organization or
research center.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
That's doing this to people. It's a small funeral home.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
The Sunset Masa funeral home was operated in Montrose, Colorado,
by owner Meghan Has and her mother, Shirley Kotch. On
May twenty eight, two thousand and nine, Meghan Has created
Donor Services, which was a body broker that operated out
of the same location as the funeral home. Their primary
source of income was harvesting and marketing donated human remains
such as heads, torsos, arms, legs, or entire bodies, to

(17:10):
customers who say they would use the remains for medical, educational,
or scientific purposes. Meghan advertised the remains offered to buyers
as being legitimate and freely donated, but this was often
not the case. Consent forums often had forged signatures, while
others had no consent forms attached to their.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
Names at all.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
Beginning in twenty ten, Meghan and Shirley devised a plan
to begin to defraud families to make more money. Megan
offered customers discounts on funeral services such as cremation if
they can send it to donating body parts to Donor Services. Oftentimes, however,
Shirley and Meghan did not even discuss donor services with
the families, and when they did, the families often refused,
but the body parts were still taken, or the families

(17:50):
chose to only donate small tissue and skin samples, but
many parts were taken. Beyond this, Megan and Shirley would
deliver the cremains to the families, saying they were of
the loved ones, but oftentimes they were not. From twenty
ten to February twenty eighteen, Megan and surely mailed bodies
that the families did not consent to. Many of the

(18:11):
bodies or parts were improperly marked or labeled. The shipments
would often be through the mail or commercial air flights,
and this violated the Department of Transportations Transportation of Hazardous
Materials laws. They would ship parts belonging to people who
had infectious diseases such as sepatitis B and C and HIV.
So even though Shirley would take blood samples and send

(18:31):
them for testing, they often didn't inform the families and
they would so ship the remains even if.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
They tested positive for these diseases.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
So they would take a blood sample and they would
get it back and if it tested positive for any
kind of disease. They would not inform the families, and
they wouldn't obviously inform the people they were giving the
bodies to selling the bodies to. They would just send
them anyway. The investigation officially began in twenty seventeen when

(18:59):
the Detroit FP office was doing a similar investigation in
Michigan and information had been shared.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
About Sunset Mesa.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
The FBI conducted a search warrant a few months unto
the investigation. On February six, twenty eighteen, when the FBI
showed up at the funeral home, Megan Hess was there,
but they stated it seemed clear she was not going
to explain anything to them, and she seemed scared and
nervous and seemingly just annoyed by their presence. The FBI
uncovered a lack of records or records that were falsified

(19:26):
and manipulated. Megan owned the business, while her mother, Shirley
just worked there for her. Megan was in charge of
making sales to body brokers and interacting with grieving families,
while Shirley would work kind of in the background. She
would be the one to dismember the bodies, package them,
and embomb them. Shirley would use tools from the hardware stores,
such as electric salls, reciprocating stalls, and pruners to do this,

(19:48):
and she had no formal training to work in a
funeral home. Shirley would find out how to do things
by searching for tutorials on YouTube. FBI agent Bush went
to Shirley's home on the day that executed the search
warrant so he could speak with her. Shirley express or innocent,
stating the bodies were consented and free of infectious diseases.
When Bush confronted surely about lying, her husband stepped in
and stopped the interview.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
There's no specific crime.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Directly related to what they were doing with the bodies
in terms of, you know, dismembering them and selling them.
But there's crimes other crimes that I've discussed in terms
of how they shipped them, shipping ones with diseases, forging
the paperwork, forging the signatures on the paperwork, not having
proper documentation. So they were defrauding the buyers by claiming

(20:34):
the bodies were free of infectious diseases. And then they
were of course defrauding the families by not honoring their
wishes with their loved ones because they were stealing the bodies.
During the investigation, the FBI confirmed there were eight hundred
and eleven bodies or parts of bodies sold. Out of those,
five hundred and sixty were stolen or sold fraudulently. Agents
discussed the most difficult part of the case was having

(20:55):
to explain to families what actually happened to their loved ones.
Agents allow the families to decide how much information they
wanted to know about their loved ones. Some wanted to
know everything about their loved ones, and others just didn't
even want to know anything. I guess they couldn't bear
the thought of what happened to them. One such story
involves a former Uranian minor who fought off lung cancer

(21:17):
on his own for as long as he could, but
when he finally went to the doctor, he was given
only weeks left to live. His daughter, Judy, stated, quote
he sprung it on us just a few days before
he died, that he wanted to donate his body to
science for his type of cancer to be studied, and
quote after he died, Judy felt that something was off
about Sunset mas a funeral home and how they handled
his arrangements. She said she had nightmares about how they

(21:40):
handled his body and that Meghan had done something horrible
to his body. And it turns out Meghan had done
something horrible to his body. Judy's father was sold to
a company in Saudi Arabia. In the FBI informed term quote,
my dad was turned into a plastic display basically end quote.
Once Judy realized she did not have her father's real cremains,
special agents took some remated remains families had received and

(22:01):
tested them in their lab. Families got the boxes back
and were told some contained garbage that Megan and Shirley burned,
but there was also some evidence of human remains in
there too, just not the people they were supposed to get.
The families of the victims gathered in a park in Delta,
Colorado to share memories of their loved ones and spread
ashes for people whose remains they did have. So essentially

(22:24):
all of the members came together that had donated, well
not even donated, had their family members stolen, essentially, but
all the people that had went to Sunset Mesa for
after death help, you know, with the bodies and things,
they all met up and had kind of this collective funeral,
and they told their stories about their loved ones and things,
and that was kind of a nice way to come

(22:47):
together and share their experiences. And they all were sharing
this terrible experience, so they got to all get to
know each other and everything, and I thought that was
kind of neat that they were able to do that,
at least Megan Early were officially insited on March twelfth,
twenty twenty, with the indictment stating, now, I'm going to
go through just a part of the indictment here. It

(23:09):
is relatively long, but I do want to go through
the scheme part of the indictment. Sunset masa of Funeral Foundation, Inc.
Was a nonprofit corporation incorporated in the state of Colorado.
SMFF was purportedly organized exclusively for charitable, religious, educational, and
scientific purposes, and its purpose was purportedly to provide assistance
to community members who have no resources for funeral or

(23:31):
cremation services. SMFF was formed by defendant Megan Hass Honor
about May fourth, two thousand and nine. Has dissolved SMFF
Honor about February seventh, twenty eighteen. The scheme listed in
the indictment is as followed, beginning in or about twenty
ten and continuing two on or about February six, twenty eighteen,

(23:53):
in the state and District of Colorado and elsewhere. The
defendants hes In Coach devised and intended to devise scheme
to defraud and to obtain money and property from decedents,
their families or representatives, and other customers by means of
materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises. It was

(24:14):
part of the scheme that often Hesse and on occasion
Kach would meet with families seeking cremation services for their
loved ones who had died. During these meetings, hessen Koch
represented to the families as the families had requested, the
SMFD would cremate the decedents and provide their cremated remains
back to the families. In many instances, hessen Kach neither
discussed nor obtained authorization for donation of descendents' bodies or

(24:37):
body parts for bodybroker services. In other instances, the topic
of donation was raised by Hessar Koach and specifically rejected
by the families. In such circumstances, despite lacking any authorization whatsoever,
hes In coach harvested body parts from and or otherwise
prepared entire bodies of hundreds of decedents for bodybroker services.

(25:00):
Families agreed to donation. Frequently, these families believed, based on
representation from or coage, that only small samples such as
tumors or portions of the skin, would be taken for
testing or research. Other families believed, based on representations from
Hes her coach, that donated remains will be used to
treat living recipients. Still others only authorized donation of specific

(25:21):
body parts, such as specific organs, but specifically denied donation
for anything else. Frequently, in such circumstances, Hess and Coach
exceeded the authorization they obtained, remains would be sold for
purposes not contemplated by the families, and body parts beyond
those which were authorized, if not, entire bodies would be sold.
In each of these instances, the families would not have

(25:41):
authorized donation had they been informed of what would actually
be done with their loved ones remains. The income derived
from the body broker services business allowed Hes to advertise
rates for cremation that often made a s MFD the
least expensive option in the area, as a result, Hess
was able to ensure a constant supply of bodies for
her and coat a body broker services business. Hesserkoch would

(26:03):
also at times offer free or reduced rate cremations to
incentivize families to agreed to donations of their loved ones remains.
Hess coach or an employee of SMFD at the request,
would provide cree means to families representing that the creemans
delivered were that of the decedent.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
In reality, this frequently was not the case.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
In many instances that a scedents entire body was sold
through donor services. Nevertheless, the families were charged and paid,
typically one thousand dollars or more for a cremation that
never occurred. These families would receive cremeans replaced or supplemented
by hesser Koch with the cremins from another person or persons.
The families relied on the representation that the cremins they

(26:42):
received were that of their loved ones. In making final arrangements,
Hess advertised the remains offered by donor Services to customers
of her body broker services business as legitimately and freely donated,
when this.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
Often was not the case.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
In order to support such claims, Hess developed donor authorization
forms reportedly would be signed by the families of descendants
when authorizing donation. In dozens of instances, records maintained by
Hessen Coach for Donor Services and SMFD contained donor authorization
forms that had forged signatures indicating a donation was authorized
when that had never occurred. In hundreds of other instances,

(27:17):
the records maintained by Hessen Coach contained no donor authorization
form at all, Yet the decedents remains were nevertheless sold
through donor services. All of the customers of donor services
relied on Hess's representation that the remains they purchased were
legitimately donated. These customers would not have purchased the remains
hast sold had they known that the remains were not
in fact donated and had stead been stolen. Many of

(27:41):
the customers of donor services also required the remains they
received be free of particular infectious diseases, namely HIV and hepatitis.
Coach would frequently draw blood from decedents whose remains were
to be sold and submit that blood for testing. In
dozens of instances, hess or Cox received results indicating the
remains tested positive for these diseases, but rather than informed

(28:01):
donor services customers of this fact, has frequently sent these
customers altered lab reports indicating their remains tested negative for
the infectious disease. These customers relied on these representations. I
would not have purchased the remains had they known that
they were infected with these diseases. In order to fraudulently
increase their profits, hes and costs shipped or caused to

(28:21):
be shipped human remains from decedents who tested positive four
or died from infectious diseases through the mails and or
commercial air flights in violation of Department of Transportation regulations.
In total, hessen Koch received hundreds of thousands of dollars
for human remains sold through donor services that were either
fraudulently obtained and represented as freely donated or were otherwise

(28:42):
fraudulently represented as free of infectious diseases when that was
not the case.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
So I know that was a lot there, but that was.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
Just the entirety of the scheme paragraph in the indictment.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
So there's a scheme section in the indictment.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
I just wanted to go over that and help your
dostam kind of what they were being charged with and
what they were doing wrong. Megan has sent our mother
Shirley Kache were arrested on March seventeenth, twenty twenty and
they were accused of illegally selling bodies or parts of
bodies without consent of the deceased family. Both were charged
with six counts of mail fraud and three counts of
illegal transportation of hazardous materials. Both ladies were released on bond.

(29:22):
On July fifth, twenty twenty two, Megan pled guilty to
one count of mail fraud and one count of eating
and a betting. On July twelfth, twenty twenty two, Sureley
pled guilty to one count of mail fraud and one
count of eating in a betting. January third, twenty twenty three,
Meghan was sentenced to twenty years and Shirley was sentenced
to fifteen years in prison. They attempted to appeal their sentences,
and their attorneys convinced the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals

(29:44):
to vacate their sentences after discrepancies were found in sentencing enhancements,
including monetary losses during the original sentences. It was determined
that monetary losses exceeded five hundred thousand, but they claimed
that the amount was too high. On April twenty first,
twenty twenty five, the pair were re sentenced and their
efforts to get short sentences failed. The judge concluded that

(30:07):
many victims in the case were vulnerable, which enhanced their sentencing.
The DOJ was seeking fifteen years for Megan and six
years for Surely, but the two received the exact same
original sentences of twenty years and fifteen years, respectively.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
After multiple scandals.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
Occurred across Colorado, the Governor Jared Pulis signed multiple bills
to regulate funeral hubs. One required people in mortuary science
occupations to obtain a license to practice as a mortuary
science professional, and one continued the regulation of non transplant
tissue banks. And now I'm going to go on to
another case because i wanted to put this in here

(30:46):
because everyone thinks that, you know, medical schools and universities
are always pretty transparent on what they're doing with their donations,
and they typically are, but of course, you know, there
are dishonest people that work at these places. This is
one of those examples. Another well known case from twenty
twenty three, when former morgue manager at Harvard Medical School

(31:08):
Siedric Lodge was arrested for stealing and selling body parts
from cadavers donated to the School for Science. So this
is a case that comes from twenty twenty three. It's
pretty well known. Between twenty eighteen and twenty twenty three,
Siedric Lodge, his wife, and three others stole body parts,
including skin, brains, and bones, from donated cadavers at the
Harvard Medical School morgue, and they sold the remains to

(31:29):
a network of buyers across the country. They even sold
stillborn babies that were due for cremation. In some cases,
he allowed buyers to enter the morgue to select the
parts they wanted. Payments were made through PayPal. On June fourteenth,
twenty twenty three, Siedric and four others were indicted by
a grand jury on allegations of theft and sale of
body parts. The charges included charges of conspiracy and interstate

(31:51):
transport of stolen goods. On September eighth, twenty twenty three,
Jeremy Pawley, one of Sidric's purchasers, pled guilty to his
charges and admitted his role in a nationwide network that
bought and sold human remains stolen from Harvard Medical School
and a mortuary from Arkansas. He paid thirty seven thousand
dollars to Seedric for the parts. He was sent to

(32:11):
two years probation. Jeremy also purchased body parts from a
woman named Candice Chapman Scott of Little Rock, Arkansas. Jeremy
met her in a Facebook group. She admitted to stealing
remains from an Arkansas crematorium where she worked and selling them.
She sold multiple brains, an arm and ear, lungs, hearts, breasts,
a belly, buttoned testicles, and other parts. FBI investigators found

(32:33):
numerous stolen body parts in her home that she admitted
she transported in trash bags from her job. She received
ten thousand, six hundred and twenty five dollars from Jeremy
Polly in Pennsylvania for human remains she pled Gudeam sent
to fifteen years in prison on January sixteenth, twenty twenty five.

(32:58):
Cadrek Lodge and his wife Denise both pled guilty to
charges of interstate transport of stolen human remains on May
twenty second, twenty twenty five. Their sentencing date has not
yet been determined, but they could be facing a maximum
of ten years in prison and a fine of up
to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but unfortunately, sentencing
guidelines only suggest the sentence of probation or six months

(33:19):
in jail. However, and then this final case has really
no legal issues tied to it. However, it definitely should
in my opinion, and it really disgusts me what these
people do. And then they're living this lavish lifestyle and
doing their thing, you know, like they're acting like they

(33:40):
do nothing wrong. They're just living this rich lifestyle and
doing terrible things. And this is an example, like I said,
but they have not had any legal legal battles to
fight Another body brokerage out of Phoenix, known as Science
Care Inc. Earned twelve point five million dollars in earnings
from twenty twelve to twenty fourteen. Owners Jim and Josie

(34:01):
Rodgers most likely earned millions more in the dozen years
it was opened before twenty twelve, according to Reuters. In
twenty sixteen, they sold Science Carret to a billions dollar
private equity firm. With this sale came written pledges of
one hundred thousand people who were already donating their bodies
to Science Caro.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
When they die, Jim and.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
Josie Rodgers were able to buy a custom built airplane
to luxury homes near Phoenix and properties in Hawaii and Colorado.
Since Science Care Ink and other body brokerages market themselves
so aggressively to donors that it has become difficult for
medical schools to now obtain donated bodies due to these
brokerages offering more favorable terms, such as picking up the
bodies free of charge. Although Science Cares consent forms do

(34:42):
state they are a for profit company, it is not
explicitly stated that bodies or parts of bodies will be sold.
Gail Williams Sears, a nurse in Newport News, Virginia, and
her father, John M. Williams Junior, who is eighty eight,
did not realize that Science Care may profit off of
his body when he donated to them.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
Quote. Dad was very frugal.

Speaker 1 (35:02):
He thought it was ridiculous to pay a large amount
of money to be put in the ground.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
End of quote.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
Gil stated his motivation for donating his body came from
his lifelong interest in good health, his Christian faith, and
his science fiction book and movie love. So he he
loves science fiction books and movies and thought it would
just be cool to donate his body.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
When he would go to the hospital, he would always
take his.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
Donor documents with him in case he would die, so
they knew exactly what he wanted done with his body.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
I don't remember anything in the literature that said anything
about them selling his body. I thought it was just
his body going for research, and it wasn't to get
gains off of someone's charity. Well, I guess we've gotten
a world where everybody just makes money off of everything.
End quote Gil stated. At this time, Science Care's new
owners and previous owners have not been accused of mishandling
any body parts. The company has remained mostly professional and

(35:51):
has demonstrated how a well run operation such as theirs
can generate a large profit on the remains of its donors.
Science Care would seek out dead or terminally ill by
building relationships.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
With funeral homes, hospices, and hospitals.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
Science Cares owner north Lane Capital Partners own various other businesses,
such as a potpoury group and another body brokerage, which
they now merked with Science Care. So I kind of
bang to differ on the well run thing, because they're
clearly not well run if Downers and their families don't
know that they're actually going to profit off their body.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
Parts, because just because they state they're a.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
For profit, it doesn't really go into detail about what
they're actually doing with, you know, these bodies.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
So I just found this one.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
I don't know, it made me a little grouchy because
the owners, the previous owners, you know, they're living great,
they're owning you know, all these airplanes and luxury homes
and stuff, and.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
They got all this.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
Money from bodies. And at least they didn't steal the bodies.
I will give them credit for that. I mean, did
technically have their consent forms and everything up to date,
and they were legitimate and as far as I know,
they were not caught selling any you know, infectious disease
parts or anything like that.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
But to me, it's just weird.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
I just I don't know, I find it odd that
people can live like this off of, you know, selling
people's body parts.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
But I guess.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
People have interesting ways of making a living, all right, everyone,
That concludes this episode. If you want to look this up,
you'll definitely go down a rabbit hole because there's four
more cases I could have included in here, but again
thanks for listening and until next time,

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}S03E09: Flesh for Sale- A Look into the Body Trade