Whose Ashes Are in the Urn? Body Donation Facility Worse Than Frankenstein.
PHOENIX (KPHO/KTVK/CNN) – Gruesome details have been released in a lawsuit against a body donation and tissue bank facility in Phoenix, Arizona.
The FBI raided the Biological Resource Center (BRC) as part of a human body parts trafficking investigation in 2014.Agents found buckets full of body parts and different people sewn together and hung up on a wall, according to testimony by one of the agents.“This is a horror story. It’s just unbelievable. This story is unbelievable,” said Troy Harp, who donated the bodies of his mother and grandmother to the facility in 2012 and 2013.Harp, one of more than 30 plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the BRC, donated the bodies with the understanding that they would be used for scientific purposes."Cancer, and leukemia and whatever else, using sample cells, that’s what I was told," he said. But that’s not what happened.In 2014, the FBI raided the facility in hazmat suits as part of a multi-state investigation into the illegal trafficking and sale of human body parts.For the first time, we’re now able to see the testimony from one of the FBI agents who conducted the raid.The agent said he found a “cooler filled with male genitalia,” “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, which is called a “morbid joke” in the lawsuit."Who in their right mind?” Harp said. “It's absolutely gross."The lawsuit says the bodies were cut up with chain saws and band saws.“Tools that are not appropriate for dismembering scientific bodies,” Harp said.The lawsuit also says “pools of human blood and bodily fluids were found on the floor of the freezer,” and that there were bodies with no identification tags.Harp said his mother’s ashes showed up by mail on his doorstep shortly after the raid, but he isn’t even sure they’re her ashes.He said his mother and grandmother wanted to help medical research after their deaths, yet he doesn’t believe they ever made it out of the BRC building.When asked if he feels like he’s ever gotten closure, Harp said: "No, this is open, and I don't think I ever will."BRC owner Stephen Gore was sentenced to one year of deferred jail time and four years of probation after he pleaded guilty to illegal control of an enterprise.Harp said that’s not enough, and he wants to see more federal regulation of facilities like the BRC, which is now closed.The lawsuit into the center is ongoing.Source: Copyright 2019 KPHO, KTVK via CNN. All rights reserved.