Ghoulish Cargo of 60 Severed Heads Found at Airport
June 16, 2010— -- A shipment of up to 60 human heads and parts of heads, wrapped with duct tape and stuffed in plastic containers, has been seized at an Arkansas airport while cops determine whether the ghoulish cargo is involved in an illicit body parts trade.
Investigators said the heads appeared to be "medical specimens," opening the door to whether authorities in Little Rock, Ark., had inadvertently stumbled upon an "underground market" for human body parts.
Pulaski County Coroner Garland Camper said 40 to 60 whole and partial heads were discovered June 9 by a Southwest Airlines employee who alerted the Transportation Security Administration and local police.
The coroner now has possession of the heads.
The heads, he said, were not refrigerated or placed on ice. Instead they were "packed in regular plastic containers, and wrapped with water-absorbent material and duct tape."
The heads were being shipped by JLS Consulting LLC, a medical research company in Conway, Ark., to Medtronic, a company that produces medical devices like defibrillators, based in Fort Worth, Texas.
Camper said the heads had been improperly labeled and the documents connected to the opaque plastic containers did not indicate what was inside.
"There were inconsistencies with what they said were in those containers and what was found," Camper told ABC News.com.
Camper said investigators were focusing on the way the heads were being transported, how they were obtained and whether they were being sold illegally.
"These were human body parts. They were medical specimens," Garland said. "There is a real demand for these body parts all over America. There is an underground market for this stuff and we are determining if we stumbled on an underground human body parts market."
JLS founder Janice Hepler told the Associated Press the heads are to be used in a continuing-education program for physicians.
