The Business of Body Brokering
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What is body brokering?
I'm Natalie Brogamed, and welcome back to Infamous, a production of Sony Music Entertainment and Campsite Media. I just wanted to take a moment to say that this episode deals with heavy subject matter, including funerals and the processing of human bodies. It is quite disturbing, especially if you're in the process of grief. Please listen with care. So if you're anything like me, you spend a lot of time thinking about the mind-body-soul connection. Am I spending too long on my phone? Am I too in my head and not enough in my body? Am I developing a spiritual practice that nourishes said soul? And it's one of the eternal questions that all religions deal with. What happens to our souls after death?
But perhaps the question we really should be asking is what happens to our bodies? One gruesome possible answer is body dealing. Yes, you heard that right. Body dealing. This is a shady economy where body parts after death are bought and sold for money. It's a surprisingly unregulated industry, and I was shocked to discover one thing in particular. The US is a massive, huge exporter of human body parts. Today, we're diving into the world of body dealing, also known as body brokering, at a funeral home in Montrose, Colorado, where one woman and her mother ran a stunning scheme. They offered steep discounts on cremations and gave families bogus ashes while they secretly dismembered the bodies and sold them to medical companies claiming to do research. It's a shocking story, and one I knew nothing about, but feels really important to understand, even if it's kind of difficult to think about. I'll let Vanessa take it from here.
Why is the body brokering industry unregulated?
We have an amazing journalist with us, Ashley Fantz. She is the podcaster of a serial show that if you haven't listened to it yet, you have to listen to it. And it's called Body Brokers. If any of you have lost a loved one, I'm sure you have experienced going to a funeral home or being presented with different kinds of caskets, wondering how much money you should spend there. You know, in the case of my father, he was cremated. We can get into that because it's a funny and also disturbing story. But you don't know what really happens to your loved one's body. So tell us, Ashley, about how you began the reporting.
I found out it was like the plot twist. I never saw coming for sure. But I was diagnosed with a deadly congenital heart defect that typically kills people in their teens and early 20s. And it's a very rare defect. It's called anomalous right coronary artery.
How did you find out you had that? Did you have a heart attack?
No, thank God I didn't. Even though doctors remarked to me, like one doctor really threw me because I became a guinea pig for all of their tests because it's such a rare defect. But one cardiologist said to me, I don't even understand why you're still alive. And I said, well, while you puzzle on that, I'm going to get another doctor because I don't want to be talked to that way. I've always been a distance runner, but I never had any symptoms while I was exercising. I really didn't have any symptoms. But one night I was giving my toddler a bath And I started having really intense chest pain, which sent me to the ER. And I was fine. I think I actually just probably had gas. And so that's what caused me to go see a cardiologist.
You know, in your 40s, as a woman, you learn to be very aggressive with doctors who otherwise would blow you off and say, oh, it's anxiety or whatever. Sure.
And that's how they discovered it. Thank God. I mean, it sounds like you really snatched victory there from the jaws of defeat because it could have just put you in that casket.
Yes, exactly. Exactly. So I have an awesome scar that runs down my chest. And I love to talk to people about not only what happened to me, but also get conversations going about death. So I'm a real hit at parties. And Actually, it was a colleague of yours, Adam Hoff, who sent me a news story about the narrative that undergirded the podcast, which was a mother and daughter who owned a funeral home in rural Colorado who were luring people in through the front door with the promise of discount cremation, which we know is very expensive normally. The funeral industry is a billion dollar business.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is body brokering?
0:09–2:11
2
Why is the body brokering industry unregulated?
2:11–4:54
3
What shocking practices occurred at the Montrose funeral home?
4:54–9:58
4
How did the investigation into body brokering begin?
9:58–16:29
5
What happened during the FBI raid on the funeral home?
16:29–21:43
6
What were the consequences for the families affected?
21:43–25:15
7
How did the body brokers profit from their actions?
25:15–35:31