LITTLE ROCK — Nearly a year after the seizure of three tote boxes containing human heads and temporal bones at the Little Rock airport, the county coroner plans to cremate the remains now that the companies shipping and receiving the cargo are no longer interested in the transaction.
Little Rock police were called to the Little Rock National Airport, Adams Field, on June 9 after a Southwest Airlines employee found the body parts in containers that a courier had attempted to send by way of air freight.
The containers were being moved by JLS Consulting Group of Wynne to a facility in Fort Worth operated by Fridley, Minn.-based Medtronic Inc., a medical technology firm.
The airline employee told police that the containers were opened because they were not properly marked. Inside the first container, the employee said, he found a “large red Bio-Hazard bag” in which he found “several items wrapped in large absorbent pads,” which turned out to be human heads and temporal bones, according to a police report.
When police responded, the heads were seized and taken to the Pulaski County coroner’s office.
Body parts for medical research are regularly moved across the country by specialized couriers. Companies that receive donations of bodies for research are not regulated by any federal or state organization.
After the body parts were seized at the airport, months of discussions followed between JLS Consulting and the former county coroner, Garland Camper, who refused to release the body parts without proper identification.
Janice Hepler, the founder and owner of JLS Consulting, did not return calls seeking comment that were made to her cell phone Tuesday. The number listed on the firm’s website has been disconnected, and e-mails sent to an address listed on the site drew no response.
In August, Camper said that there were “discrepancies” in the number and description of the body parts. Hepler told the Democrat-Gazette that month that the only discrepancy she noted was over the race of one of the donors whose head was in the containers.
Hepler said that on donor forms and the person’s death certificate, the person was identified as Caucasian, while Camper contended that the person was black.
“You can only go by what the family tells you, and for whatever reason the family said they’re Caucasian,” she told a reporter during an interview in August.
Arkansas Code 20-17-1211allows bodies to be donated to any “hospital, accredited medical school, dental school, college or university, organ procurement organization or other appropriate person, for research or education.”
Companies that receive donated bodies maintain they don’t sell the bodies but rather charge fees to cover the cost of transporting, freezing, preparing and storing the bodies, as well as cremating them after they are no longer useful for research or teaching.
The incorrect labeling on the tote boxes was enough for Medtronic to refuse the shipment, which they did “a day or two” after the body parts were originally seized, said company spokesman Brian Henry.
The company is now working with other suppliers, he said.
Pulaski County Coroner Gerone Hobbs said his office has not heard from JLS Consulting since sometime last year.
On Tuesday, Hobbs said he will move forward with plans to have the remains cremated after he cremates other bodies held in the coroner’s freezer.
“Due to the space that we have, I need them out of there,” Hobbs said.
Karla Burnett, the county attorney who has been in contact with the coroner’s office and, at one time, both of the companies involved in the transaction, said she has also dropped out of contact with the two companies.
“I have not heard from them in months,” she said.
On the basis of the original agreement between the company that received the body parts as a donation, the Arizona-based Biological Resource Center, and JLS Consulting, Burnett said, a court order to cremate the remains “might not be necessary.”
The contract allows for the cremation of the remains once they are no longer needed.
Burnett said that when Hobbs is ready to cremate the body parts, he can request permission through her office and move forward.
“I don’t think it’ll be a lengthy process,” she said.
Hobbs is concerned with the cost of cremating the remains from JLS Consulting. He was unsure how much it would cost his office and the county.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 06/01/2011