The man entrusted with supervising corpses and body parts donated to the University of California’s prestigious medical school in Los Angeles was arrested at the weekend on suspicion of theft.
The arrest was the first in an investigation of alleged trafficking: employees in the school’s donor programme have been accused of stealing corpses willed for research, and selling them to biomedical firms.
Henry Reid was arrested after police raided his home and car, carrying out large cartons. He was released on bail of $20 000, and will on Tuesday face formal charges of theft. At least one other employee is on administrative leave, the university said in a statement.
Reports of an illicit trade in cadavers — undetected for as long as five years — came as a shock to UCLA. On Sunday, it posted guards outside the seventh floor freezer where it stores corpses.
Reid, an embalmer, was hired seven years ago to reform practices after it emerged that ashes of cremated cadavers had been dumped in landfill sites. The university is still resolving that dispute, and a law suit by relatives of donors. – Guardian Unlimited Â