- The body of 98-year-old David Saunders was dissected at a public event in Portland, Oregon.
- The $500-a-ticket event took place in a hotel ballroom last month.
A 98-year-old
Mike Clark, a funeral director in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, told KING 5
Clark said the family instead learned that the body was dissected at a $500-a-ticket event at a Portland Marriott on October 17 through a KING 5 News investigation into the public dissection event.
The dissection was organized by a group called
An event page for the Portland dissection says Death Science's medical professionals would guide guests through the dissection and would allow viewers to "get an up close and personal look at the cadaver."
An administrator with Med Ed Labs told KING 5 News that the company had sold Saunders' corpse to Death Science founder Jeremy Ciliberto, though the administrator said he could not explain why the company had given Death Labs a body infected with COVID-19.
Ciliberto told KING 5 News that Med Ed Labs was aware of his plans to dissect the body at a public event.
Clark, meanwhile, told KING 5 News that his funeral home would no longer work with Med Ed Labs, and that his staff was "horrified" with what happened.
"It makes me really feel saddened that this gentleman was not given the dignity and the respect that he deserved and what he thought and his family thought that would be happening to his body," he told the outlet.
Clark and Ciliberto didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.