Former dentist pillages corpses for sale on black market

October 5, 2007

1 Min Read
Dead for Sale!

4:20 PM -- The same way you can't trust that your toys don't come alive at night, you can't trust your funeral director not to sell your deceased relatives. The Scotsman reports:

  • THREE American funeral directors sold 244 corpses at £500 a time to a New York businessman who trafficked in the resale of often-diseased body parts, a court has heard.

    Stolen bones, skin and tissue - almost impossible to trace from donor to recipient due to forged documents - were transplanted in unsuspecting medical patients worldwide, the grand jury in Philadelphia found. The case will now go to trial...

    Michael Mastromarino, a businessman and former dentist, ran the scheme with the help of a team of "cutters" who stole the body parts, authorities said.

Former dentist? Ten bucks he had his license revoked when he used his college pliers to pluck out his patients' hearts and sell them on eBay.

  • Mastromarino, who ran a company called Biomedical Tissue Services, is already facing charges in New York for allegedly plundering 1077 bodies...

    Funeral directors Louis Garzone, 65, Gerald Garzone, 47, and James McCafferty, 37, were arrested yesterday on thousands of counts, ranging from running a corrupt organisation to forgery and theft of body parts.

And false impersonation, presuming they used the faces as Halloween masks. (Boo.)

— Red (Not Dead, Not for Sale) Panda, Light Reading

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