Former cadaver dealer Arthur Rathburn (pictured) stored human body parts inside a ‘filthy’ Detroit warehouse, a federal agent testified in court on Friday
A former cadaver dealer stored human body parts inside a ‘filthy’ Detroit warehouse where they were preserved in makeshift containers including paint cans and beer coolers, a federal officer testified in court on Friday.
FBI agent Leslie Larsen added that she and her colleagues found human remains frozen together inside Arthur Rathburn’s refrigerator, next to ingredients for sandwiches, The Detroit Free Press reported.
Rathburn, 64, is currently facing 13 federal charges, including wire fraud, transport of hazardous material and making false statements.
Rathburn is also charged with defrauding customers by selling them body parts infected with hepatitis and HIV.
Investigators said that they found the body parts along with fetuses inside the warehouse during a December 2013 raid.
Rathburn is pictured at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S. in November 1988
Investigators said that they found the body parts along with fetuses inside the warehouse (pictured) during a December 2013 raid
‘We seized human remains, documents and tools,’ Larsen told the Detroit courtroom.
The fetuses, which appear to have been in their second trimester, were submerged in a liquid that included human brain tissue.
How Rathburn acquired the fetuses and what he intended to do with them still remians unclear.
Arthur Rathburn (pictured), 64, is currently facing 13 federal charges, including wire fraud, transport of hazardous material and making false statements
Rathburn´s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment, and neither the indictment nor other documents made public in his case mention the fetuses.
Rathburn, along with his ex-wife, Elizabeth, were accused of fraud after they were caught selling infected body parts through their company, International Biological Inc.
Elizabeth, however, turned government witness after pleading guilty to one charge of fraud and now is a witness in the case.
Authorities first became suspicious of Rathburn when U.S. Customs agents seized a severed head he was transporting from Tel Aviv to Chicago.
The head was infected with sepsis, U.S. Attorney John Neal said during court, and was packed in a trash bag filled with fluids, which failed to meet shipping standards.
Rathburn´s lawyer, James Howarth, urged the jury to focus on the documents in the case, not gruesome photographs. He said that Rathburn´s ex-wife is ‘most responsible’ for any wrongdoing.
‘This case is so sensitive because the nature of the evidence is going to make us all cringe, make us all uneasy,’ Howarth told the jury. ‘There´s nothing particularly pretty about a deceased body that has been separated into parts, but I would hope no one would have bad feelings toward Mr. Rathburn because of that.’
The fetuses, which appear to have been in their second trimester, were submerged in a liquid that included human brain tissue
The buying and selling of cadavers and other body parts – with the exception of organs used in transplants – is legal and virtually unregulated in America
Rathburn allegedly lied about the liquid, claiming it was mouth wash, and that he had embalmed the head, Neal said.
The buying and selling of cadavers and other body parts – with the exception of organs used in transplants – is legal and virtually unregulated in America. But trading in fetal tissue violates U.S. law.
Such brokers take cadavers donated to science, dismember them and sell them for parts, typically for use in medical research and education.
The multimillion-dollar industry has been built largely on the poor, who donate their bodies in return for a free cremation of leftover body parts.
In most states, including Michigan, public health authorities are not required to regularly inspect body broker facilities. As a result, it´s impossible to know whether body brokers who deal in adult donors are acquiring and profiting from fetuses.
The walk-in freezer at the Wayne County Morgue in Detroit where the FBI is storing more than 1,000 body parts that were seized in December 2013