Body-snatcher who masterminded illegal harvesting ring dies in New York prison aged 49 after terminal bone cancer battle



Michael Mastromarino was suffering from the cancer which had spread throughout his body, his lawyer revealed in April

Mastromarino made millions from cutting up corpses from funeral homes and selling them to unsuspecting doctors



A disgraced dentist considered the mastermind of an illegal body parts harvesting ring has died at a New York prison aged 49.



Michael Mastromarino was pronounced dead around 10am on Sunday at St Luke's Hospital in Cornwall, according to prison officials.

The agency says that he had been taken there from the medical unit at Fishkill state prison.

Died in prison: Michael Mastromarino was pronounced dead around 10 am on Sunday at St Luke's Hospital in Cornwall, according to prison officials

Officials say a medical examiner will determine the cause of death, which appears to be from natural causes.

His attorney told New Jersey media outlets that Mastromarino had cancer. The New York Times reported he had died from complications of metastatic liver cancer.



The former Fort Lee, New Jersey dentist was sentenced in 2009 to up to 58 years in prison for his role in a multi-state ring that illegally harvested body parts.



Mastromarino and others would cut up corpses from funeral homes and then sell the body parts to unsuspecting doctors.



It had emerged in April that the criminal was dying of bone cancer which had spread through his entire body. His lawyer said at the time that he had been given his last rites.



Mastromarino had made millions of dollars from his ghoulish practice of illicitly harvesting skin and bones from corpses.

Lockdown: Mastromarino's death appears to be related to his battle with terminal bone cancer

Ghoulish: The body-snatcher harvested parts from more than 1,000 corpses which were sold on to medical centers



The harvesting ring dismembered more than 1,000 cadavers in unsanitary conditions in New York state, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and sold parts to doctors who transplanted them into patients.

BBC veteran broadcaster Alistair Cooke was among the 1,000 victims of the body-snatching gang.



Mastromarino had pleaded guilty to body stealing, reckless endangerment and enterprise corruption in 2008.

Desecrated: Veteran BBC broadcaster Alistair Cooke was one of Mastromarino's victims

Brothers Louis and Gerald Garzone provided bodies from a pair of funeral homes and a crematorium they ran in Philadelphia to Mastromarino. They are currently serving between eight and 20 years.

Mastromarino paid the Garzones for at least 244 corpses that were carved up without families' permission and without-medical tests, prosecutors said.

Skin, bones, tendons and other parts, some of them diseased, were then sold around the country for dental implants, knee and hip replacements and other procedures. The tissue stolen from a single body often fetched about $4,000.

Biomedical Tissue Services, which was owned by Mastromarino, shipped the body parts to Regeneration Technologies, LifeCell Corp, Tutogen Medical Inc and two non-profit organisations, Lost Mountain Tissue Bank and Tissue Centre of Central Texas.

At the time of his sentencing, Mastromarino wept as he told the court: 'Words cannot express how sorry I am.'

He called his crimes 'nothing less than disgusting and embarrassing'.

Mastromarino had been serving an 18 to 54-year sentence for body stealing, forgery, grand larceny and enterprise corruption. He and his estranged wife Barbara agreed to pay $4.6million to victims' families.

