By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
When the FBI raided a rundown warehouse in Detroit in December 2013, they made grisly discoveries at what turned out to be a black-market body parts business.
Agent found infected bodies dismembered with chainsaws, rotting, un-embalmed heads soaked in mouthwash and water, and human remains washed down the drain or thrown into the regular garbage.
New and disturbing photos obtained by Reuters show that federal investigators also found four preserved fetuses, which appear to be in their second trimester, immersed in a dark liquid that included human brain tissue.
It’s unclear what Arthur Rathburn, owner of International Biological Inc., intended to do with the fetuses and how he obtained them. Selling fetuses for profit is a violation of federal law.
“This needs to be reviewed,” said U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who recently chaired a special U.S. House committee on the use of fetal tissue.
Rathburn is accused of defrauding medical researchers and educators by sending them infected body parts, without the families’ consent, from a rundown warehouse.
Rathburn has pleaded not guilty and is facing a trial in January in a criminal case that, until now, made no mention of fetuses.
