Jim Stauffer discovered the body of his mother Doris was blown up in an experiment for the US Army after her death (Picture: Reuters)

A son says he discovered that his mother’s body was sold to the US military and blown up in a ‘blast testing’ experiment despite him donating it specifically for medical research.

Jim Stauffer said he only learned what had actually happened to his mother Doris, 73, three years after her death.

Doris died in hospice care after battling Alzheimer’s for a number of years, despite doctors saying she didn’t carry the gene for the disease.

Medical officials feared the condition may have mutated and hoped to study her brain after her death to further investigate.


When she died in 2014, her neurologist was unable to accept her remains, so Jim reached out to other donation facilities, hoping his mother could help those diagnosed with the disease in the future.



He agreed to send his mother’s body to the Biological Resource Center (BRC) in Maricopa County, Arizona, US, following a recommendation from a nurse.

Jim said Doris was sent under the agreement only her brain would be donated to a neurological research group.

Jim Stauffer said he ‘feels a fool’ after finding out what really happened to his mother (Picture: Reuters)

Doris Stauffer’s family were never told how her body was used after it was donated for research (Picture: Reuters)

But he said he feels ‘foolish’ after learning that instead of medical research, his mother’s body – including her brain – was sold by BRC to a testing facility for the US Army.

He claims an official from BRC came to pick up his mother’s remains within 45 minutes of her death, when he signed an agreement on what ‘would and would not’ happen to Doris’ remains.

Days later, he was sent some of her ashes in a wooden box, with no information about how her body had been used.

After three years, a reporter from Reuters sent medical records to Jim that showed BRC workers had detached one of his mother’s hands for cremation.

The rest of her remains were sold to the taxpayer-funded research ‘blast testing’ project, the records showed.

Jim said the testers strapped Doris’ body into a chair and detonated an explosive device beneath her.

The idea of the experiment was to ‘get an idea of what the human body goes through when a vehicle is hit by an IED’, according to the medical documents.

Jim told Fox6: ‘I’m not a trusting person, but in this situation you have no idea this is going on — you trust. I think that trust is what they fed on.’

Doris pictured when she was 16 in Arizona, US (Picture: Reuters)

Jim with mother Doris (centre) and the rest of the family before her death (Picture: ABC15)

He added: ‘There was actually wording on this paperwork [from BRC] about performing this stuff. Performing these medical tests that may involve explosions, and we said no.

‘We checked the “no” box on all that.’

BRC and military records show that at least 20 other bodies were also used in the blast experiments without permission of the donors or their relatives, a lawsuit claims.

The donated bodies were all sold to the military for $5,893 each (around £4,845). Officials of the project said they never received consent forms from the donors or their families.

Instead, they argue they were forced to rely on the assurances of BRC that the families or donors had all agreed to be used in the research.



Jim said the revelation about how his mother’s body was used ‘plagues’ his memories of her.

He added: ‘I don’t see a pathway of ever getting past this. Every time there’s a memory, every time there’s a photograph you look at there’s this ugly thing that happened just right there staring right at you.’

Jim is one of 33 complainants who have launched a lawsuit against the Biological Resource Center (Picture: Reuters)

A 2014 FBI investigation found bodies donated to BRC were cut up by chain and hack saws (Picture: Reuters)

Jim is one of 33 complainants who have launched a lawsuit against BRC and its owner, Stephen Gore, over their treatment.

An investigation in 2014 by the FBI found more than 1,755 human body parts at the BRC facility, which took 142 body bags to move and weighed 10 tons, according to Reuters.

The FBI probe also found a woman’s head had been sewn onto a male torso at the BRC laboratory, described by investigators who found it as a ‘Frankenstein monster’.

Investigators said bodies were cut up using chain saws and that BRC had a ‘price list’ for parts, including $4,000 for ‘an intact torso’ and $375 for a knee.

Gore was handed a suspended one-year prison sentence over conducting an illegal business in 2015.

He broke down in tears as he pleaded guilty to the charge, admitting the bodies were not used in a way that donors had permitted.

The civil trial is expected to take place at Maricopa County Superior Court on October 21.

Got a story for Metro.co.uk? Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk. For more stories like this, check our news page.