Alistair Cooke's Bones Stolen

Alistair Cooke's Bones Stolen, Newspapers Say


NEW YORK (Dec. 22) - The bones of the late British broadcaster Alistair Cooke were stolen by a crime ring that snatched body parts to sell for transplant procedures, according to reports in two New York newspapers Thursday.

Citing sources close to an investigation by the Brooklyn district attorney's office, the Daily News said Cooke 's bones were snatched before his cremation and sold for more than $7,000 to two tissue processing companies.

It quoted Cooke's daughter, Susan, as saying she had learned of the theft last week and was shocked and saddened by it.

A spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney's office would not comment on the report. A similar story ran in the New York Post.

Cooke, the long time host of the U.S. public television show "Masterpiece Theatre," and known for his Letter from America broadcasts for the BBC, died in New York in March 2004 from lung cancer. He was 95.

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This is disturbing and rather disgusting. I also want to know what they use the tissues for. He died of lung cancer, so I will assume here that the tissues are not all that healthy. If he had radiation or chemotherapy, the tissues would be unhealthy as well, right?

I am suddenly flooded with images of that Marlon Brando scientist, working in his lab on that faraway island...

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He was 95. How healthy could his body tissue have been anyway?

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That's FANTASTIC!!!! Finally - a sure fire cure for my insomnia! (I could just cry...)

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Updated On: 12/22/05 at 11:39 PM

I've finally set aside the crocheting and I'm now making a large gemstone tree. I've been working late, twisting wires into the convoluted shapes of tree branches. My poor hands are bleeding from a hundred pokes and scratches.

I've got to come up with a safer way of killing time. Did you suffer any body damage from the card making?

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