Federal authorities decide to go for broker. And speaking of dismemberment, a trial has commenced in Detroit involving a body broker that violated federal laws related to handling cadavers. What exactly is a body broker? These businesses provide corpses to medical schools, medical seminars, and the like, and the rules are pretty strict for this unusual industry. But back in 2013 the FBI raided International Biological, Inc.'s warehouse because of complaints about the company peddling bodies and body parts infected with HIV, sepsis, and hepatitis. During the raid authorities found frozen clumps of heads, arms, legs, organs, and torsos, as well as masses of dead insects, and eventually were forced to separate the body parts with a pneumatic chisel. Some pieces were found in ordinary beer coolers, Tupperware, paint cans, 50-gallon drums, and even in a refrigerator next to ingredients for sandwiches.
Adding a domestic twist to this mess is the fact that the government's star witness, Elizabeth Rathburn, is the ex-wife of International Biological's owner Arthur Rathburn, just below, and we presume she's telling the jury Arthur was never good at cleaning up after himself—he never put the toilet seat down, he didn't wash dishes, and rarely if ever took out the garbage. And there's not much Arthur can say in his own defense. In fact, we bet his attorney won't even let him take the stand. But if he does his ex-wife should perform the cross-examination. “So, sweetie, in addition to these being almost uncategorizably heinous crimes against people who in good faith donated their bodies to science, did I not fucking tell you to get off your ass and clean up that shithole?” And when Arthur denies that he's an untidy guy she can simply say, “Your honor, as proof Arthur has no idea when to get rid of garbage the prosecution would like to enter into evidence his mustache.” We have a feeling this trial is going to end very badly for him.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1986—Otto Preminger Dies
Austro–Hungarian film director Otto Preminger, who directed such eternal classics as Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Carmen Jones, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Stalag 17, and for his efforts earned a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, dies in New York City, aged 80, from cancer and Alzheimer's disease. 1998—James Earl Ray Dies
The convicted assassin of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., petty criminal James Earl Ray, dies in prison of hepatitis aged 70, protesting his innocence as he had for decades. Members of the King family who supported Ray's fight to clear his name believed the U.S. Government had been involved in Dr. King's killing, but with Ray's death such questions became moot. 1912—Pravda Is Founded
The newspaper Pravda, or Truth, known as the voice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg. It is one of the country's leading newspapers until 1991, when it is closed down by decree of then-President Boris Yeltsin. A number of other Pravdas appear afterward, including an internet site and a tabloid. 1983—Hitler's Diaries Found
The German magazine Der Stern claims that Adolf Hitler's diaries had been found in wreckage in East Germany. The magazine had paid 10 million German marks for the sixty small books, plus a volume about Rudolf Hess's flight to the United Kingdom, covering the period from 1932 to 1945. But the diaries are subsequently revealed to be fakes written by Konrad Kujau, a notorious Stuttgart forger. Both he and Stern journalist Gerd Heidemann go to trial in 1985 and are each sentenced to 42 months in prison. 1918—The Red Baron Is Shot Down
German WWI fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, better known as The Red Baron, sustains a fatal wound while flying over Vaux sur Somme in France. Von Richthofen, shot through the heart, manages a hasty emergency landing before dying in the cockpit of his plane. His last word, according to one witness, is "Kaputt." The Red Baron was the most successful flying ace during the war, having shot down at least 80 enemy airplanes. 1964—Satellite Spreads Radioactivity
An American-made Transit satellite, which had been designed to track submarines, fails to reach orbit after launch and disperses its highly radioactive two pound plutonium power source over a wide area as it breaks up re-entering the atmosphere.
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