Cadavers in paradise

Cadavers in paradise

Invasion of the body brokers

By Lynda Carson - May 27, 2026

Note: If you are poor, and cannot afford a burial, or cremation after you die, some headlines below may help to reveal what’s happening in our country to many poor people after they are dead, in these very grim times we find ourselves in.

Courthouse News, Harvard morgue scandal reaches Mass. high court, exposing vast ‘gray market’ in body parts.

Reuters, In the U.S. market for human bodies, almost anyone can dissect and sell the dead.

NBC News, Dealing corpses from a Las Vegas strip mall: A look inside the shadowy U.S. body trade.

UnionLeader.com, Federal agents find fetuses in body broker's warehouse.

Washington and Lee University, Selling Organs to Make Ends Meet: How Poverty Drives the Illegal Organ Trade and the Ethicality of Legalization.

The Guam Daily Post, FBI agents raid headquarters of major US body broker.

Nursing Clio, What’s Old is New Again: The David Saunders Autopsy and Corporate Graverobbing in America.

Business Insider, Colorado Funeral Home Owners Illegally Sold Body Parts, Prosecutors Say.

Reuters, How Reuters bought human body parts and learned a donor's tragic story.

NBC News, A veteran's corpse was sent across state lines — before his family knew he was dead.

Reuters, In a warehouse of horrors, body broker allegedly kept human heads stacked on his shelves.

Reuters, Exclusive - FBI agents raid headquarters of major U.S. body broker.

Reuters, Inside a business where human bodies were butchered, packaged and sold.

Reuters, How an American company made a fortune selling bodies donated to science.

New York Post, The body parts industry is booming—with heads going for $3K, spines for $1,200.

NBC News, Texas lawmaker moves to outlaw medical research on corpses without consent.

NBC Boston, Harvard's morgue scandal is part of ‘a much larger story' in trading human remains.

The Denver Post, 18 bodies found in hidden room at Pueblo mortuary identified, Colorado officials say.

Reuters, Special Report: A business where human bodies were butchered, packaged and sold.

NBC News, After a young woman was shot dead in Texas, a medical school harvested her body parts.

Salon.com, Unclaimed dead bodies are often "donated" to science — but it’s not always consensual.

Cracked.com, Bodies Get Blown Up & Other Gruesome Things When ‘Science’ Gets A Cadaver Donation.

Irish Examiner, The Body Broker: Authorities let Arthur Rathburn do business despite signs of his bizarre practices.

NBC News, As families searched, a Texas medical school cut up their loved ones.

The Sun, How the grisly trade in body parts has become one of world's booming industries.

Ranker, A Body Broker Took Bodies Donated To Science, Dismembered Them, And Sold The Body Parts Illegally.

International Business Times UK, What is body brokering? Preserved fetuses and rotting human heads discovered in Detroit warehouse.

BBC, The trade in US body parts that's completely legal - but ripe for exploitation.

The Denver Post. How Colorado funeral homes are rebuilding trust after scandals involving decomposing bodies, fake cremains and body brokers.

High Country News, Body brokers arrested for illegally selling body parts.

NBC News, Horrified Texas lawmakers demand crackdown on body broker industry.

Reuters, Made in America: U.S. body brokers supply world with human torsos, limbs and heads.

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Cadavers in paradise -- Invasion of the body brokers

Oakland, CA - Times are grim under the corrupt convicted felon President Trump regime, and budget cuts to medicaid, medicare, food stamps (SNAP program), HUD’s housing programs and other domestic programs meant to help the poor will eventually result in many deaths of poor people in the future. Poor people who may end up as cadavers being sold by body brokers because they are too poor to afford burials, or cremation.

According to a May 20, 2026 report in the Denver Post, in part it says, “State investigators now know the names of 18 people whose remains were left to decompose in a hidden back room of a Pueblo mortuary for over a decade, Colorado Bureau of Investigation officials said Wednesday.

All of the remains identified from Davis Mortuary so far are from people who died between 2010 and 2012, the CBI said in a news release. The remains of six people are still unidentified, and investigators continue to use forensic genetic genealogy — working with a private lab to match DNA to public databases and find distant relatives — to try to identify them, a necessity because of the lack of mortuary records, the poor condition of the remains and degraded DNA.

State inspectors found the room of human remains at Davis Mortuary in August during their first inspection of the facility after state lawmakers strengthened Colorado’s funeral home regulations in the wake of other, similar scandals on the Western Slope, in Penrose and metro Denver.

The CBI is still investigating “multiple containers of bones, cremains and probable human tissue representing an unknown number of deceased individuals” that were also found at the mortuary.”

That’s right. The above mentioned horror story and headlines reveals what may happen to poor people who cannot afford a proper burial, or cremation after they die, and it’s a grim situation.

Where I reside, six low-income individuals have died here since 2008, meaning on average one person died here in this 21 unit residential building every three years. Presently, someone here is in such bad shape health wise, that 911 - First Responders and Falck ambulances often appear here at this location two or three times a day.

In the past, after one of the poor people who died here since 2008 ended up in the morgue, the property manager tried to help out and find someone to take control of the body for burial or cremation purposes. However, as grim as it may sound, no one was available because my dead neighbor was estranged from his family, and as a result, in all probability the body or cadaver may have ended up with a body broker who may have sold the body, or parts of it to make some money…. What a world.

Body Brokers a.k.a. Non-Transplant Tissue Banks

According to Wikipedia, in part it says, “A body broker (also non-transplant tissue banks) is a firm or an individual that buys and sells cadavers or human body parts.

Whereas the market for organ transplantation is heavily regulated in the United States, the use of cadaver parts for research, training, and other uses is not. Trade in these body parts is performed in a manner akin to raw materials, though many brokers say they charge fees as opposed to selling body parts.

Whereas body snatching was a common way of acquiring bodies for research up until the 20th century, modern body brokers usually receive cadavers via body donation. Body brokers often offer free cremation as a means to induce donation from families who are unable to pay funeral costs, returning ashes of part of the body to the next of kin. In some cases body brokers obtain bodies fraudulently by stating use of the donation for research, subsequently reselling the body for profit.

Body brokers also obtain cadavers and body parts from institutions who receive donations and have a surplus. In some cases, this is done illegally against the donor's wishes or by employees who act independently of the institution. In 2004, the UCLA Willed Body Program was suspended for a year after a scheme for the sale of body parts for profit involving its director at the time Henry Reid and body broker named Ernest Nelson was uncovered. The scheme yielded some 1.5 million dollars in profits. Reid and Nelson were subsequently convicted for theft and related tax offenses and were sentenced to 4 and 10 years respectively.”

Reuters Report About Body Brokers:

According to a report with Reuters, in part it says, Fenris Lu was arrested and booked on four counts of necrophilia with a cadaver, and burglary, after breaking into a Phoenix morgue.

Additionally, in Arizona, “United Tissue Network” is offering free cremation to those who donate their bodies (cadavers), or the bodies of loved ones to the organization.

According to a report with Reuters, “GenLife, which changed its name to United Tissue Network, has since grown into one of the nation's larger body brokers.”

Lynda Carson may be reached at newzland2 [at] gmail.com

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