In this chilling episode of Infamous, Vanessa speaks with Ashley Fantz—the journalist behind the podcast Body Brokers—and dives into the hidden world of body brokering, a disturbing industry where human remains are bought and sold for profit. Through her investigation into the shocking story of a mother-daughter-run funeral home in Colorado, Ashley uncovered a reality that forces us to ask: what really happens to our bodies after death? To learn more about the South Florida Willed Body Program, visit https://med.miami.edu/programs/sofab/body-donation Click ‘Subscribe’ at the top of the Infamous show page on Apple Podcasts or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you get your podcasts. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices A Campside Media & Sony Music Entertainment production. To connect with Infamous's creative team, plus access behind the scenes content, join the community at Campsidemedia.com/join Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Full Episode
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.
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?
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