Freezer full of body parts awaits day in court

In a walk-in freezer of the Wayne County morgue, the smell of death and decay lingers among 50 plastic bins stuffed with body parts.

Heads, hands, legs, torsos — more than a thousand body parts in total.

The FBI dropped off the remains nearly two years ago after seizing them from a Detroit warehouse — evidence in a nationwide investigation that is focused on a local businessman who has been on the government's radar for years, but who has never been criminally charged.

For the last five years, the FBI and border officials have been following the tracks of Arthur Rathburn of Grosse Pointe Park, a former University of Michigan morgue attendant and central figure in an ongoing national investigation dubbed "Body Brokers."

Rathburn and cadaver dealers in Arizona and Illinois are suspected of dismembering human bodies without the consent of donors, lying to their families about how the bodies would be used, and secretly selling the body parts to medical researchers, who use them for everything from surgical training and medical device development to paste for periodontal surgery or screws to hold fractured bones in place, federal court records show.

And it's a very lucrative business.

A human body is worth anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000 if sold in parts, court records show. Brains can fetch $600; elbows and hands $850.

While it is not illegal to sell body parts or tissue, the FBI investigation centers on three key potential crimes:

Bodies being dismembered without the donors' consent and sold for profit, deceiving donors and their families who were promised they would not be sold — just used for medical research.

Bodies going to science without the clear consent of the donors.

Body donation centers selling body parts riddled with disease to unsuspecting medical researchers.

The FBI notes in court documents that most body parts do get used for medical research and training. But the growing demand for body parts in the constantly evolving medical world has created a gray-black market in which body brokers are crossing both legal and ethical lines to meet this high demand.

"While this trade is not, in and of itself, illegal ...," an FBI agent wrote in an affidavit, "crimes have been committed."

The FBI's probe has crisscrossed the country with raids in Detroit, Phoenix, suburban Chicago, Nevada and Oregon.

Though Rathburn has not been charged with any crime, the FBI's case against him appears to be heating up — if a recent guilty plea in Arizona is any indication.

On Oct. 7, one of Rathburn's associates, Arizona businessman Stephen Gore, pleaded guilty to running an illegal body donation center in Phoenix at Biological Resource Center, which was shut down in 2014 following an FBI raid. It was a paper trail that started in Detroit that led to the closure. A year later, that same paper trail led the FBI to Illinois — home of Rathburn's main body parts supplier, court records show.

Now, authorities in Arizona say they're helping the FBI connect the dots and show how body parts moved between Illinois, Arizona and Michigan, made the dealers money, and without the donors' families ever knowing.

"Our case will be sent to the FBI in Michigan so they can continue their federal investigation," said Mia Garcia, spokesperson for the Arizona Attorney General's Office. "There's a connection between all three."

A grisly discovery

The FBI's case is spelled out in search warrant affidavits that are on file in U.S. District Court in Illinois. The probe, records show, originated in Detroit in December of 2013, when federal agents raided Rathburn's east-side Detroit warehouse, International Biological and seized more than 1,000 body parts that were found on ice — not embalmed — including:

The head of an Illinois man whose mother had no idea her son's body would be dismembered and sold.

The head, with the brain removed, of an Illinois woman whose husband would not have donated her body had he known she would be dismembered.

The head, right shoulder and leg portions of another woman whose son told the FBI he was never told that "the body of his mother would be cut into pieces and sold for profit."

Rathburn dealt only with parts that were "fresh, frozen, and never embalmed," according to court records.

The grisly discovery in Detroit triggered more raids across the country. Two cadaver businesses were shut down, including Rathburn's. Thousands more body parts were seized. Numerous families of the deceased were interviewed, with many relatives saying they had no idea their loved ones' bodies would be dismembered and sold for profit. And had they known that, records show, they never would have donated their loved ones' bodies to science.

Neither Rathburn nor his attorney is talking.

But in court documents, the FBI says that it has reams of documents outlining a number of crimes — mail and wire fraud, interstate transportation of stolen property, making false statements — and piles of evidence that all lead to Rathburn — shipments of heads returning from Europe, bloody coolers filled with fresh heads from Israel, torsos missing heads and limbs that weren't supposed to be cut off, and body parts infected with HIV, hepatitis, sepsis and MRSA that wound up in research labs.

'This is a tragic situation'

When Pequeena Dixon of Chicago received her father's ashes two years ago, she didn't question as to whether the remains belonged to her dad: William Perkins, a former Cook County Sheriff's officer and civil rights crusader who died of a stroke in 2013.

But a year and a half later came a startling letter from the FBI: Federal agents had raided the center that her father's body had been donated to. Shortly after came the mind-numbing phone call: The FBI had discovered her father's head, shoulders and legs during the raid.

"This is a tragic situation; this is so extraordinary and tragic that we wanted to get involved and help," said Chicago attorney Kenneth Goldstein, who has filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the Dixons and potentially "hundreds of thousands of others" who may have experienced the same trauma.

Among those being sued are Rathburn, whom Dixon and her family believe was part of a nationwide scam that deceived donors and their loved ones by mishandling, abusing and desecrating the dead to make money. The lawsuit bolsters the FBI's theory: that Detroit, Arizona and Illinois cadaver handlers were working together, and that Rathburn was getting most of his body parts from Illinois.

According to the lawsuit, Perkins' body was donated to the Biological Resource Center of Illinois (BRCIL) in Rosemont, Ill., at the recommendation of the hospital where he died. His children were following their father's wishes in gifting his body to science, and consulted with BRC officials, who assured them "that the body would not be sold and would be used by hospitals and students for medical research, and at the conclusion of this use, his body would, in its entirety, be returned for cremation," the lawsuit states.

Many months later, the FBI would identify the Illinois center in court records as the main body part supplier for Rathburn.

Now, Dixon suspects the ashes delivered to her were "likely not (her father's) remains at all," the lawsuit states.

Goldstein said his law firm has never seen a case like this before.

"They lost their dad more than a year ago, and now it's like they're going through it all over again."

The Illinois cadaver center, which is still in operation, has denied any wrongdoing, claiming: "The implications of the FBI's investigation, namely that BRCIL is involved in the illicit practice of trafficking in tissue, cannot be further from the mark."

"BRCIL has not and does not sell bodies, and does not violate its agreements with donors," the company said in a statement. "It is important to note that the FBI's investigation did not originate with BRCIL, but rather with a different, unaffiliated organization based in Michigan."

In court documents, the FBI says it has billing invoices and other documents that show the Illinois outfit was selling body parts to Rathburn's Detroit business and "deliberately remained ignorant as to the ultimate use" of those remains. It cited, for example, a 2010 e-mail sent from company owner Donald Greene to one of Rathburn's associates that stated: "After talking with you early today, I don't think I need, nor is it any of my business to know who your customers are. I would rather it be easy for me to dismiss things like what we talked about earlier instead of there ever being any allegations in the future."

Greene did not return calls for comment.

"I don't know where Mom is"

Joyce Gingrich had mourned her mother's death for just four days when an article in an Arizona newspaper caught her eye. It was about a raid at a Phoenix body donation center — the same one that her mother's body had been donated to.

"The headline caught my eye," she said. "I thought, 'What the heck?!'"

"I yelled for my husband," said Gingrich, who recalled her husband responding to the news: " 'Are you kidding me?!' "

Gingrich's mother, Adelyne Douglass, 83, died on Jan. 17 after suffering from Alzheimer's. She donated her body to the Biological Resource Center in Phoenix to help researchers learn more about her disease.

What Douglass did not know was that the Phoenix center had been linked to an FBI investigation in Detroit, where agents raided a similar facility a month earlier. The FBI was headed to Arizona after learning that a Michigan body broker — Rathburn — was buying body parts from the Phoenix company.

On Jan. 21, 2014, investigators raided the Arizona business and removed bags of body parts and several cadavers.

For weeks, Douglass' children had no idea where their mother's body was.

"I've done a lot of difficult things in my life, but calling my sister long distance and saying, 'I don't know where mom is' — that was something I wasn't prepared for. She was devastated and horrified," Gingrich told the Free Press in an interview from her home in Apache Junction, Ariz.

Weeks after the raid, on Valentine's Day, a BRC employee showed up at Gingrich's home with her mother's ashes. There was more bad news: Her mother's body was never used for research because, Gingrich was told, her tissues weren't stored properly.

"The final blow to my mom is that her wishes didn't even get followed," said Gingrich, who is upset with the FBI — not the donation center — for taking her mother's body.

"It's not like they raided a tire store. They took people's bodies and people's remains," Gingrich said. "I was never angry with BRC. I never thought they lied to us. They were helpful."

As for whether the ashes are really her mother's, she said:

"I'll never know, … but I have to live my life believing that that's my mom in the box. Because if I don't, I'll go crazy."

Brian Bates of Glendale, Ariz., lives with the same kind of uncertainty. His wife, Ginger, died after suffering a stroke on Jan. 18, 2014. Her body also was donated to BRC and relocated after the raid.

Bates went a few days not knowing where his wife's body was. A local police official told him the bodies had been moved to a funeral home in Sun City, Nev., he said, noting a BRC employee eventually delivered his wife's remains.

Bates, though, is skeptical about whether his wife's body was used for research, even though he received a letter from BRC saying that it was. He said it was a form letter stating: "Your loved one's body was used in a respectful manner."

"There was never a letter of apology," Bates said. "I'm always skeptical because it was a form letter. … I still would like to know what happened. Why was there a raid? What had they done wrong?"

Despite this experience, however, Bates still plans to donate his body to science, "just not with this company."

Biological Resource Center was shut down after the raid.

BRC's owner, Steven Gore, has previously defended his company in a statement, saying its staff worked "diligently each day to serve and honor our donors and their families with dignity and respect.

"For nearly a decade, we have worked with universities, researchers, medical device companies and educators who rely on these selfless gifts from donors to provide better healthcare and quality of life for our society," Gore said in the statement.

Gore now faces two to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to his role in the body donation scheme, though authorities say he is cooperating and could get probation when he is sentenced in December.

Stockpile of human heads

Rathburn's name and morbid profession first surfaced in a 2006 book called "Body Brokers."According to journalist Annie Cheney's book, Rathburn sold bodies while working for U-M until he was caught and fired. Rathburn was the coordinator of U-M's anatomical donation program from 1984 to 1990.

In 1989, Rathburn started his own business supplying body parts: Biological International, which he ran out of an industrial warehouse on Grinnell Avenue, near the old Detroit City Airport, now known as the Coleman Young International Airport.

For years, he stayed under the radar.

"In 2002, by his own account, Rathburn delivered 42 heads and necks to the Marriott Marquis on Broadway … delivered from his company in Detroit," Cheney wrote in her book.

According to Cheney's book and court documents, medical researchers sometimes hold training seminars in hotels, where the body parts are delivered by body brokers.

Four years after the book's release, the federal government zoomed in.

Customers and Border Patrol and the FBI started watching Rathburn, whose stockpile of human heads created suspicion. In 2010, he was stopped at a border in Washington state over three human heads he was traveling with. In 2011, at Detroit Metro Airport, border agents intercepted a shipment for Rathburn that contained human heads. One of the heads had just been shipped back from a medical seminar in Athens, Greece, although it was supposed to have been cremated with the rest of the body in Illinois, where it was donated. In 2012, another eight human heads from Israel arrived at Detroit Metro Airport for Rathburn. They were in garbage bags and blood-filled coolers. Rathburn claimed all heads were healthy, when one had sepsis, FBI records allege.

In December 2013 came the big raid. Agents in hazmat suits converged on Rathburn's Detroit warehouse and hauled away bags of body parts belonging to more than 1,000 people, including several whose families never knew the bodies would be dismembered and sold.

Among the body parts seized that day were the head, legs and left shoulder of a man from Illinois, records show. Rathburn had bought the man's whole body for $5,000 from the Biological Resource Center of Illinois, dismembered it, then sold various parts to international researchers, court records show.

The FBI located the man's mother.

"She was led to believe that her son's body would not, or even could not, be sold," an FBI agent wrote in an affidavit, adding the mother "would not have donated her son's body ... had she known the truth."

Little oversight of body brokers

Richard Drake, a longtime member and current secretary of the American Association of Anatomists, cringes when he hears stories about body brokers deceiving families.

"It's a shame when these things happen," Drake said. "It casts a bad appearance on the programs that are trying to do the right thing."

Drake, who is director of anatomy at the Cleveland Clinic and oversees its body donation program, said a key problem in the cadaver industry is that there's very little oversight of body brokers. Body donation centers at universities are more tightly regulated and trustworthy, he said, noting many medical schools today have memorial services for their donors, and their families often come.

The body brokers don't work that way.

"They do have a purpose, but they're not necessarily run as aboveboard as they should be. We don't think they're truthful with the families," said Drake, noting "there's a lot of money that we're talking about … and there's very little regulation."

For individuals interested in donating their bodies to science, academic experts recommend going to a university medical school. Michigan has three such programs — at the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University — all of which are governed by the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, which has been adopted by 48 states.

"People understand that the university is a legitimate educational entity, and they know that we treat the families and the bodies willed to medical science with the utmost respect," said WSU Mortuary Supervisor Barbara Rosso, who oversees the body donation program at Wayne State's medical school.

WSU has seen a 25% increase in body donations in the last five years, Rosso said. In 2014, 244 people donated their bodies to WSU's program. None was sold.

"We accept whole human bodies donated for medical education or research purposes only," Rosso said. "The program does not involve the sale or purchase of bodies or parts. We do not sell those bodies, nor parts of those bodies."

Keeping a low profile

Rathburn, meanwhile, is keeping a low profile in a duplex in Grosse Pointe Park, where he lives with his wife, who came to the door one recent morning but declined to talk about the case. She said her husband was out of town, and politely closed the door.

Rathburn has long shunned reporters and has even called police on them when they show up at his home. Neighbors sometimes see him mowing the lawn or playing with his several Irish wolfhounds in his backyard, where he regularly builds fires.

"I've been wondering what's been going on with the case," said next-door neighbor Gail Urso, who has lived next to Rathburn for more than 10 years but spoken to him on only a few occasions. She said she's been inside Rathburn's house once, to see his antiques, and that he once told her he sold prosthetic limbs for a living.

Urso said that she learned about the body parts investigation after FBI agents and law enforcement swarmed her street one morning and raided her neighbor's house. She recalled turning to Google to find out what was going on, and finding news reports that contained images of people in hazmat suits removing bags from her neighbor's business, International Biological. The bags, she would learn, contained body parts.

"It was pretty horrifying," Urso recalled.

Rathburn is now struggling to get by as his lifelong profession involving the dead has died itself. His body-part business was shut down after the raid. Months later, he lost his mortuary license in light of the investigation.

His attorney, Brian Legghio, declined comment for the story, saying only that his client is having a hard time getting by.

Rathburn's career included many highs. While at the University of Michigan Medical School, he received patents for designs on stations where cadavers and their parts are prepared. He published a reputable journal on embalming and autopsy stations, and lectured nationally on the topic of anatomy.

Today, the fruits of his labor sit in a morgue, waiting for the FBI to pick them up.