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N.Y. funeral home accused of cashing in on cadaver body parts PDF Print E-mail
Written by DeadGirl   
Sunday, 12 March 2006
March 10 2006

NEW YORK CITY -- A family-owned funeral home may have received cash kickbacks in exchange for looking the other way while a body parts ring looted cadavers, including that of "Masterpiece Theatre" host Alistair Cooke, according to two law enforcement officials close to the case. The officials said in recent interviews that investigators were targeting New York Mortuary Service Inc., the Manhattan funeral parlor that handled Cooke's body after he died in 2004. They suspect the business conspired with the alleged ringleader -- a former oral surgeon named Michael Mastromarino -- by alerting him whenever "they had a body that they could cut up without anyone knowing," one official said.

The arrangement allowed the ring to harvest human tissue from people who had not given consent or were too old or too sick to donate, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case was still under investigation. The tissue -- typically skin, bone and tendons -- was later sold for use in a variety of common procedures like dental implants and hip replacements.

An attorney for Timothy O'Brien, owner of New York Mortuary Service, called any allegation that his client violated the dead or misled their survivors "completely false."

The grisly case has stunned both transplant recipients who fear the body parts could spread disease and families who believed their loved ones were resting in one piece.

Mastromarino, 42, and three other defendants pleaded not guilty last month to charges including body stealing, unlawful dissection and forgery. The Brooklyn district attorney's office and the New York Police Department have said more arrests were expected.

The ring allegedly removed parts from hundreds of bodies from funeral parlors in New York, Rochester, Philadelphia and New Jersey before they were embalmed or cremated. Authorities say Mastromarino made millions of dollars by selling the parts to companies in Florida, Texas and elsewhere that produce products used in operations done at hospitals and clinics nationwide and in Canada.

An attorney for Mastromarino has insisted his client followed all regulations for taking tissue. Funeral directors, the lawyer said, were in charge of getting the families' permission and filling out paperwork -- a claim New York Mortuary Service owner O'Brien denies.

O'Brien was led to believe Mastromarino had obtained consent, said his attorney, Kerry Lawrence. Otherwise, he "never, ever would have participated in anything like this," the lawyer said.

Investigators found that bodies were returned to the funeral homes for wakes and burials with plastic plumbing pipe crudely stitched into limbs where bones had once been. Other picked-over remains, like Cooke's, were cremated.

Investigators also unearthed evidence that someone doctored death certificates and other documents, and falsified signatures.

In Cooke's case, his age was listed as 85 rather than 95, and his cause of death heart attack instead of lung cancer that had spread to his bones.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-310bodyparts,0,6420726.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines
 
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Taphophilia?

taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)

ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"

DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries

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