Episode 39: Evidentiary Body Parts

In this episode, we discuss the retention and disposition of human remains after they are seized by law enforcement as part of a criminal investigation. We’re not talking about what happens to a body after an autopsy is conducted as part of an investigation. No, we’re talking about what happens to body parts (or things made from body parts) after they are seized as evidence of the crime itself. For context, think Ed Gein, the prominent 1950s criminal who made furniture and clothing out of human skin he harvested from graveyards or his victims. Or Jeffrey Dahmer, the infamous serial killer/cannibal whose apartment contained the dismembered body parts of 11 young men, including several skulls, hearts, and other organs. Or, more recently, the Harvard Morgue Case, where multiple people across the country were implicated in a scheme to buy and sell human body parts that had been unlawfully removed from cadavers in the medical school’s morgue. In each of these cases, investigators discovered and seized human body parts when they were searching the defendants’ premises. But what gave them the legal authority to seize these remains, if anything? And what did they or will they (or even should they) do with them after the case officially ends? These seemingly unsettled questions are what we will be unpacking and attempting to understand today.