Undertaker admits stealing and selling Alistair Cooke body parts

The Times ^ | October 20, 2006 | James Bone

[MadIvan]

I kept thinking of the movie "Phantasm" as I read this.

Regards, Ivan

[MadIvan]

Ping!

[Ladysmith]

Spines and large veins were also removed. The bodies, particularly those to have funerals with open coffins, were filled with PVC plumbing pipe to replace the missing bones, and sewn up.

That'll make for some odd archaeological findings later on...

[Billthedrill]

Just damn.

Great movie, BTW. "BOYYYYYYYYYY!"

[Riley]

I kept thinking of the movie "Phantasm" as I read this.

LOL! We'd better go make sure he's not been compressed into a dwarf, then.

Saw that one on opening night in the 70s. :-)

[Thermalseeker]

My mother stated before she died back in '97 that she wanted to donate her organs, but when the time came we were told that organ donation over age 70 is not done. She was 74 at the time of her death.

[MeanWestTexan]

Beware the Ball.

My favorite of this genre was the one with Rowdy Roddy Piper --- "The Hidden" or somesuch --- freaky aliens you could only see with glasses.

[samm1148]

I think it was They Live. Piper gave an unforgettable line in a quickie mart:

"I have come here to kick ass and chew bubble gum; and I'm all out of bubble gum."

Anyway his delivery was great.

[Proud_texan]

Yup, it was "They Live". Didn't care for the cultural references but the fight between Piper and Keith David is one of the best I've ever seen in a movie.

[Riley]

I remember that, too.

[StormEye]

"I kept thinking of the movie "Phantasm" as I read this."

Scariest guy I ever saw in a movie, in my opinion.

[x]

Pretty bizarre. Cooke was in his nineties when he died. Imagine what they must be doing to younger corpses.

Alistair Cooke

Alistair Cookie

[Kirkwood]

"We were told that organ donation over age 70 is not done."

Organs can be donated at any age. Generally at that age they are used for research purposes, but they don't go to waste.

[MinuteGal]

Dirty tricks department again.

I question the timing of this article which has been published just days before Halloween.

Obviously designed to discourage trick-or-treaters from accepting edibles at their friendly local funeral homes.

The Democrats will stop at nothing.

Leni

[Defender2]

Ivan, in the seventies, Genevieve Bujold, Michael Douglas, and Richard Widmark, playing the Bad Guy made a movie called "Coma". It was about this certain hospital putting patients to death while they were in a comatose state then selling their body parts all around the world. Frightening that someone has actually done this!!!!:-(

[Chode]

the Ball... is BACK!!!

[packrat35]

Tom Selleck was one of the victims in COMA before he became a star.

[radiohead]

... but the medical records show that he was butchered for his arms, pelvis and other tissue.

These people sound like savages, not researchers. I listened to Cooke's 'Letter from America' on the radio every Sunday up until his death. I can't imagine this happening to him. It's one thing to donate your body to science. It's another to have this happen w/o permission or your family's knowledge.

[proxy_user]

Was this article really written by James Bone?

[Defender2]

Yes, I remember him (Selleck) in the movie. I guess the reason we remember "Coma" so well is because it was a First Rate Thriller.

It's Chilling that somebody really did that with Mr. Cooke's body parts. I wonder if that undertaker had some sort of perverse connection to the movie, "Coma"?