PHILADELPHIA – Two brothers who ran a Philadelphia funeral home pleaded guilty to selling corpses to a company that trafficked in stolen body parts.
Louis and Gerald Garzone pleaded guilty Tuesday in Philadelphia to charges including conspiracy, theft and abuse of corpse. The pleas came on the day their trial was to begin.
The mastermind of the scheme, Michael Mastromarino, pleaded guilty Friday to charges that could send him to prison for life.
Mastromarino's company took bodies from funeral homes in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania and carved them up without families' permission and without medical tests.
The parts, some of them diseased, were sold around the country for dental implants, knee and hip replacements and other procedures.
Among the corpses plundered was that of "Masterpiece Theatre" host Alistair Cooke.
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