Corpse Plundering Update

Earlier on this blog, I reported on investigations into whether hundreds of bodies, including that of British broadcaster Alistair Cooke, were were secretly carved up in the back rooms of several New York funeral homes to remove bone, skin and tendons without  permission so that the body parts could be sold at a profit.

According to Tom Hays, Probe of body parts sales nets guilty pleas, USA Today, Oct. 19, 2006,

The investigation of a scheme to plunder corpses for transplantable body parts has been broadened as prosecutors secured plea deals with seven funeral home directors who have agreed to cooperate.

The unidentified directors secretly pleaded guilty to unspecified charges in the probe of what investigators say was a plot to harvest bone and tissue and sell it to biomedical supply companies, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said Wednesday.

The seven entered pleas in closed courtrooms; their names were withheld. Defense attorneys said that one of those cooperating was the director of a funeral home that took parts from the body of Masterpiece Theatre host Alistair Cooke, who died in 2004.