'Cooler filled with male genitalia' found at US body-donation company

Chilly bins are usually filled with beer or fish, but this one bucked the trend. Photo / File

A chilly bin filled with male genitalia, piles of unlabelled body parts and even a torso "with the head removed and replaced with a similar head sewn together in a Frankenstein manner" were found when a US body-donation company was raided by the FBI in 2014, newly released documents show.

The eyewitness testimony of the raid on Arizona's Biological Resource Centre has been made public ahead of an upcoming civil case against the business and its aptly named owner Stephen Gore.

Former Phoenix FBI special agent Mark Cwynar said he "personally observed various unsettling scenes" while inside the Biological Resource Centre.

In addition to the grisly chilly bin, Cwynar also saw a bucket filled with heads, arms and legs.

Large male torsos with the limbs and genitals removed were also seen, as well as body parts piled on top of each other throughout the facility, with no apparent identification.

Stephen Gore pleaded guilty in 2015 to a charge of illegally conducting an enterprise after his company, Biological Resource Centre of Arizona, was the subject of a two-year investigation.

The 48-year-old businessman acknowledged his firm provided vendors with human tissue that was contaminated and used in ways that went against the wishes of the donors.

The company was raided in January 2014. Photo / 123RF

The company's body donation facility in Phoenix was raided by authorities wearing hazardous-material gear in January 2014.

A 2013 price list, also part of the court file, gives prices for various body parts:

Whole body with no shoulders or head: USD$2,900.
Torso with head: USD$2,400.
Whole spine: USD$950.
Whole leg: USD$1,100.
Whole foot: USD$450.
Knee: USD$375.
Pelvis: USD$400.

Cadaver donation companies distribute remains to universities, medical device manufacturers and drug companies. The companies pay the associated costs and use the bodies for medical education and research, and families save burial or cremation costs.