Biomedical Tissue Services, they say, secretly carved up hundreds of cadavers without the families of the deceased knowing about it, then peddled the pieces on the lucrative non-organ body parts market. Even scarier: They say BTS doctored paperwork to hide the inconvenient fact that some of the dead were old and diseased. As a result, they say, the market was flooded with potentially tainted tissue, and an untold number of patients across the country may have received infections along with their dental implants and hip replacements.

Authorities released photos of exhumed corpses that were boned below the waist like a freshly caught fish. The defendants, they alleged, had made a crude attempt to cover their tracks by sewing PVC pipe back into the bodies in time for open-casket wakes.

Death certificates in the company's files, the report said, were at odds with those on file with the state: The company's version made people younger than they actually were, and altered the cause and time of the deaths.