body parts

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Morgue Scandal Driven by Macabre 'Oddity' Collectors

'Rolling Stone' looks into the black market for body parts revealed in Harvard Medical School arrests

(Newser) - In July 2022, Sarah Pauley defied her estranged husband's orders and started poking through items on his side of the basement. What she discovered was straight out of a horror film: alleged human remains. But as Rolling Stone explains, nobody is accusing Jeremy Pauley of being a killer. Instead,...

Man Looking for Recyclables Makes Grim Find: Cops

Authorities fear torso found in Encino dumpster may be lead in case of missing 3; man arrested

(Newser) - Police officers who responded to a report of a women's torso in a dumpster in Encino, California, fear not just one life was lost, but three. Police have arrested a Tarzana man, whose wife and in-laws are missing, KNBC reports. A man who'd been searching for recyclables reported...

Cops: He Had 'My Dead Friends' as Apartment Decorations

Kentucky's James Nott allegedly sold human remains on Facebook

(Newser) - One man tied up in a nationwide network of traffickers in human remains was located Tuesday in a Kentucky apartment decorated with human spinal cords, femur and hip bones, and 40 skulls, one of which was found on the bed where he slept, according to court documents. "The skulls...

Macron Received a Most Unusual Package in the Mail

Severed finger from living human arrived at Elysee Palace on Monday, sans note

(Newser) - The last time that "Emmanuel Macron" and "finger" appeared in a headline together, it was due to commotion over a selfie he'd taken with two young men, one of whom flipped the bird in the photo. This time around, the finger in question is a bit more...

At Harvard Medical School, an 'Abhorrent Betrayal'

Federal indictment accuses school's morgue manager of stealing, selling body parts

(Newser) - Human body parts that ended up sold via social media and a place called Kat’s Creepy Creations were stolen from Harvard Medical School, say federal officials, who allege the school's morgue manager was the one who took the remains. A federal indictment accuses Cedric Lodge, 55, of taking...

'Real-Life Body-Snatching Case' Reaches Its Conclusion

Megan Hess sentenced to 20 years after pleading guilty to mail fraud

(Newser) - Prosecutors said what victims perceived as Megan Hess' lack of remorse would be considered at her January sentencing, and it apparently was. The former Colorado funeral home operator faced up to 20 years after pleading guilty in July to a count of mail fraud tied to a scheme in which...

Police Reveal Identity of Long Island Serial Killer Victim

Valerie Mack's body parts were stashed in 2 locations, as with another victim

(Newser) - Long Island serial killer victim Jane Doe No. 6 has now been identified as a 24-year-old Philadelphia escort who disappeared in 2000. Valerie Mack, who also used the name Melissa Taylor, was last seen in Port Republic, NJ, in the spring or summer of that year. Her partial remains were...

He Approved a Brain Study. Then His Mom's Body Blew Up

Jim Stauffer is one of 35 people suing over Biological Resource Center

(Newser) - Jim Stauffer thought he was benefiting Alzheimer's research when he donated his mother's body to Biological Resource Center five years ago. As Doris Stauffer, 73, had suffered from Alzheimer's but was without the gene linked to the disease, her son thought a brain study could be useful....

Here's What the FBI Found in a Body Donation Company

The Biological Resource Center Inc. was up to no good

(Newser) - The FBI's raid on an Arizona body donation company revealed sights that can only be called gruesome. A former agent has testified in a civil suit against Biological Resource Center Inc. and its owner, saying he saw "several unsettling scenes" when the company's doors were opened in...

Recognize This Shoe? Its Owner Is Missing a Foot

Authorities look to identify 15th foot washed ashore in Canada

(Newser) - Canadian police say they're not alarmed by a human foot on a British Columbia beach—at least the 15th discovered since 2007. The left foot washed ashore in West Vancouver in September, though the BC Coroners Service is just now looking for help identifying its owner. "Typically …...

Son, Parents Face Life in Prison in Dismemberment Case

Cops say concealing Ashley Young's death was a family affair

(Newser) - It's not only a Michigan man who could face life in prison after a woman's mutilated body was discovered in the apartment building he owns. Jared Chance's parents—including a father who worked as an Illinois police officer for 25 years, per WWMT —could face the...

Couple Found With Body Parts in Stroller May Have Killed 20

Male suspect says he pulverized bones for fertilizer, used victims' flesh for pet food

(Newser) - Police in Mexico had been tracking a couple, suspecting them of being tied to the disappearance of three women and a 2-month-old baby. So when cops spotted them pushing a baby carriage Thursday in the Mexico City suburb of Ecatepec, they were hopeful they'd find the infant inside. Instead,...

Bodies Were 'Frozen Together in Flesh-on-Flesh Chunks': FBI

So-called body broker on trial for fraud

(Newser) - FBI Agent Leslie Larsen says the body parts—legs, arms, torsos, organs, and heads—inside the Detroit warehouse were "frozen together in flesh-on-flesh chunks" that required a pneumatic chisel and crowbar to separate. She says there was no heat in the "filthy" warehouse, nor running water or functioning...

Cops: Serial Killer Met Teen Victims on Twitter

He allegedly targeted those looking to commit suicide

(Newser) - The 27-year-old Japanese man in whose apartment police found body parts belonging to nine people—including two severed heads and 240 bones—allegedly targeted teenage girls on Twitter. According to police, Takahiro Shiraishi used Twitter to connect with those wanting to commit suicide. He's suspected of killing four teens...

Why Thawing the Dead With a Hose Is Basically Legal

Reuters digs into the grim, gruesome, and largely unregulated world of cadavers

(Newser) - When the subject is cadavers, and one of the first sentences is "grisly abuses abound," you know what's to come is likely not for the faint of heart. That's true with Reuters' investigation into the body trade: The story opens with a description of "bits...

Our Languages May Have More in Common Than We Thought

New findings challenge long-held theories about languages forming independently

(Newser) - About 100 years ago, one of the founders of modern linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure, wrote that the relationship between the sounds we make and the concepts they signify are arbitrary. Many have long agreed. But now the inherent randomness of human language is being challenged by a large new study...

2 Sets of Feet Washed Ashore in Fiji; Now, a Head

Russian couple dismembered, perhaps by a missing chainsaw

(Newser) - New Zealanders Graeme and Jan Bickley were on vacation in Fiji, strolling on the popular Natadola Beach when Graeme noticed a package wrapped in green cloth not far from shore, reports the BBC . "I scrambled in and grabbed hold, it was very, very heavy," he says. "I...

Human Albinos in Malawi Hunted Like 'Animals'

Increase in murders by 'hunters' seeking 'magical' body parts has made situation dire

(Newser) - There are more cases of albinism in sub-Saharan Africa than anywhere else on Earth, per the Washington Post , and in Malawi, a violent sidebar to this phenomenon has emerged over the past year and a half. People there with the hereditary condition —marked by a reduction or faulty distribution...

Woman: Neighbor Secretly 'Sold Me Her Frozen Mother'

And for a bargain, too

(Newser) - A Goldsboro, NC, woman thought her neighbor only wanted to get rid of her freezer because she was moving out of state to be with her aging mother. After the discovery of body parts in the freezer, the truth appears to be a lot more complicated. The unidentified woman paid...

Woman Dealt Diseased Body Parts in Grisly Case

Her estranged husband will stand trial in April

(Newser) - A Detroit woman faces up to 10 months in prison for fraud after admitting to renting diseased body parts to researchers. Elizabeth Rathburn, 56—to be sentenced in July—also must pay $55,225 to the American Anesthesiology Association, whose researchers were told the body parts were clean, reports the...

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