http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/12/22/ucooke.xml
Late broadcaster Alistair Cooke's bones stolen
(Filed: 22/12/2005)
The family of Alistair Cooke, the late veteran broadcaster, have spoken of their horror at the possibility that his bones were stolen by a criminal gang trading in body parts.
Mr Cooke died from cancer in March 2004
Mr Cooke, who presented BBC Radio 4's Letter From America for more than half a century, died in New York in March last year from lung cancer that spread to his bones.
The New York Daily News claims that some of the 95-year-old's diseased bones were taken before his cremation without the family's permission, and sold on for transplants.
His stepdaughter Holly Rumbold said the practice was "corrupt and evil".
"I'm furious, I'm enraged, I'm outraged," she said. "My stepfather is not the only one that's been used for this macabre purpose and people are making billions of dollars out of it."
Ms Rumbold told BBC Radio 4 that Mr Cooke had died in the night and undertakers collected him for cremation: "His ashes, or what we thought were his ashes, were returned the next day. They were scattered in Central Park - who knows maybe some of the ashes were his - how do you know? It defies the imagination."
Mr Cooke's daughter Susan Kittredge told the New York Daily News she was "shocked and saddened that following his death, parts of his body were illegally sold for transplant".
"That people in need of healing should have received his body parts, considering his age and the fact that he was ill when he died, is as appalling to the family as is that his remains were violated," she said.
The newspaper said an investigation was being carried out by the Brooklyn district attorney's office into Michael Mastromarino, who ran Biomedical Tissue Services Ltd, a tissue recovery business.
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Nice find. Thanks. The question of cremains was raised recently in another case. How does a family know whether they are receiving the cremains of their loved one, or fireplace ashes?