Singer Teddy Pendergrass Dies

The R&B singer Teddy Pendergrass died at the age of 59 on Wednesday evening due to colon cancer. He died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he had been hospitalized for months. Pendergrass' son says that his father had colon cancer surgery eight months ago and had a difficult recovery. He is known for his songs "Close the Door" and "Love T.K.O." He was involved in a car accident in 1982 that left him paralyzed and before his death he was working on a musical documenting his life, called "I Am Who I Am."

Funeral Directors in Philadelphia Steeling and Selling Body Parts

In Philadelphia, three funeral directors sold a total of 244 bodies for $1,000 each to a former oral surgeon who collected the bones, tissue, and skin from the bodies to be used for transplants. The transplants were used worldwide by unknowing medical patients.

A man named Michael Mastromarino, a former oral surgeon who ran the Biomedical Tissue Services of Fort Lee, N.J., ran the operation with help of a team of “cutters” who stole the body parts. The funeral directors named Louis Garzone, Gerald Garzone, and James CcCafferty were arrested and have thousands of counts against them, including running a corrupt organization, forgery, and theft of body parts. Mastromarino plans to surrender and fight the charges he has against him. He says that he was victimized by the funeral directors and that they were in charge of getting consent and all he was suppose to do was take care of the tissue and send samples to the processors.

The families of the bodies thought that their loved ones were cremated, but the bodies were left unrefrigerated for days and sometimes put in alleys next to the funeral home until a cutter arrived. The funeral directors lied and forged death certificates to say that the bodies had died from heart attacks or blunt-force trauma. They also made up fake names for the bodies and forged family consent forms and the authorities have found the true identities of only 48 of the 244 bodies. They also reduced the ages of the bodies and changed their dates of death to make it look as if the parts were newer and fresher.

The parts were used to treat burns, replace broken bones, and provide for other medical needs. One woman is suing because she says that she received hepatitis by getting a transplant from one of the bodies that had HIV, hepatitis C, and cancer.