Family fumes as grandfather’s dead body displayed at ‘Oddities’ event at $500 per viewer

A family in Louisiana, the United States (US) was full of rage when they discovered the dead body of their grandfather was being autopsied live in a Marriott ballroom where people paid up to $500 to watch. The corpse of the 97-year-old WWII veteran, David Saunders, was displayed in the ballroom of a Portland, Oregon Marriott hotel, where people paid up to $500 for tickets to see a live autopsy in person.

The family had thought their grandfather’s corpse would be donated to science, but was enraged that the dead body was displayed in a sideshow for an “oddities” event, dissected in front of a paying public audience in the middle of a hotel event room across the country.

An undercover journalist from Seattle News – KING – notified the family of the discovery of their grandfathers’ dead body after attending the October event where the grandpa’s name was sighted on a tag hanging from his body.

It was highlighted that the autopsy performed by a retired college anatomy professor, included several hours of dissection: slicing into the chest cavity and removing organs and the brain.

A funeral Director in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Mike Clark, was identified to have handled Saunders’ corpse after his death. Clark had informed KING5 that he transmitted the body to a private company, Med Ed Labs, which claimed to solicit corpses for medical research purposes. The company, then, sold the corpse to Jeremy Ciliberto, the founder of DeathScience.org, who partnered with the Oddities and Curiosities Expo to hold the cadaver autopsy event.

Ciliberto had disclosed that he bought bodies for the event at over $10,000.

The Oddities and Curiosities Expo is a traveling event that hosts vendors and offers classes, like taxidermy for jackalopes and two-headed ducklings, it was highlighted.

The expo’s website had indicated: “We truly have something weird for everyone at our shows. “All items you see at our shows are legal to own and sustainably sourced.”Attachments area