US man learns mum's body sold to military, blown up in experiment

Jim Stauffer with mother Doris (centre) and other family. Photo / ABC15

A US man has learned that his mother's body, that the family had donated to medical research, was instead used in "blast testing" by the US military.

Jim Stauffer says he only learned what really happened three years after his mother died from Alzheimer's in 2014, aged 73.

Doris Stauffer battled the condition for many years, despite not carrying the gene that often leads to it developing, and medical officials had suggested that her brain be studied after her death.

When she died in 2014 her neurologist could not accept her remains so her son placed her body into the care of the Biological Resource Center (BRC) in Maricopa County, Arizona.

It was sent under the condition that only her brain was to be used for medical research.

Instead, BRC sold her body to the US military which then used it in tests designed to simulate the effect of an improvised explosive device (IED) exploding under a vehicle.

To obtain these results, Doris Stauffer's body was strapped into a chair and an explosive device detonated underneath.

Jim Stauffer with mother Doris (centre) and other family. Photo / ABC15

Her son told Fox6 News that "'I'm not a trusting person, but in this situation you have no idea this is going on — you trust. I think that trust is what they fed on."

He said: "There was actually wording on this paperwork [from BRC] about performing this stuff. Performing these medical tests that may involve explosions, and we said no. 'We checked the 'no' box on all that."

Records submitted as part of an upcoming lawsuit show that at least 20 other bodies were also used in the blast experiments without permission.

BRC owner Stephen Gore pleaded guilty in 2015 to a charge of illegally conducting an enterprise after his company 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 2014. Photo / 123RF

It was revealed last month that, during a raid of the premises in 2014 the FBI "observed various unsettling scenes," including 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".

Stauffer said that the knowledge of what really happened to his mother's body "plagues" his memory of her.

He told Fox6: "I don't see a pathway of ever getting past this. Every time there's a memory, every time there's a photograph you look at there's this ugly thing that happened just right there staring right at you."