Arizona police arrested a 59-year-old man from Seattle for discarding skulls and members of at least five people in a dense forest near Prescott, Arizona.
Walter Mitchell, who had recently closed a company called Future GenX that bought and sold corpses for medical research and once described himself in an article on the body parts trade as a “veteran body broker”, was taken into custody in Scottsdale. Body parts are believed to belong to people who donated their bodies for scientific research.
Mitchell was charged on Wednesday with 28 counts of improperly moving remains, which is a Class 5 crime.
Authorities learned of the horrible remains on Saturday, when a hunter reported finding two intact heads with gauze “puppy protectors” commonly used in medical research. Later, the authorities located three more heads and a pile of different branches in another part of the forest.
Sheriff Scott Mascher told local media that they had initially opened a serial killer investigation, but after determining that the “dog pillows” were linked to anatomical research, they changed their approach. “This situation is unimaginable,” wrote Mascher in a Facebook post. “I’m sorry for the families whose loved ones were donated for research and treated so horribly.”
Authorities say Mitchell drove 1,425 miles from Seattle with heads and limbs in his car before spreading them out in a forest near Prescott earlier this year. He was living in Scottsdale at the time of his arrest.
“The disrespect shown to the deceased in this case by those accused of taking care of his remains is abominable and intolerable,” said Yavapai county sheriff David Rhodes in a statement.