A body donation centre in Arizona sold human bodies to the military, which in turn used them in shooting and explosives testing, it has been revealed. The facility in question is the Biological Resource Center (BRC) in Phoenix, Arizona, Sky News reported.
The centre mishandled the remains of as many as 23 people, a court was told. The bodies had been handed over to the facility for use in medical research. The relatives of the people were obviously misled about the purpose of receiving dead bodies.
During the ongoing civil trial, the court was told that the remains were probably used by the military in 'destructive testing.' The case relates to the 2014 raid conducted at the facility by FBI agent Mark Cwynar. He said he and his colleagues raided the facility in 2014.
Stephen Douglas Gore, the owner of the centre, pleaded guilty in 2015 to charge of mishandling of the donated body parts. Normally, companies that collect cadaver pass them on to research facilities, universities and medical device manufacturers. But in this case, the bodies were used for reprehensible purposes.
Jim Stauffer, one of the individuals suing the company, said he donated his mother's body to the firm. He said, however, the woman's body was sold to the US Army. The army allegedly used the body in a weapons experiment. The 72-ear-old's body was strapped to a chair while a bomb was detonated underneath.
"I'm not a trusting person, but in this situation – you have no idea this is going on – you trust. That trust is what they feed on," Stauffer told the Associated Press.
Mark Cwynar said some of the FBI agents who participated in the raid at the centre had been so distraught that they had to undergo counselling to regain normalcy.
