“It’s horrible what has happened to my husband.”
When David Saunders, 98, passed away due to complications from COVID-19 in August, his widow Elsie Saunders, 92, fulfilled his final wish: That his body be donated to science.
But the “scientific endeavor” that her husband’s body was used for was certainly not what either of them had had in mind: David Saunders’s body was given a public autopsy in front of a paying crowd as part of a macabre convention in Oregon.
Elsie Saunders told NBC News that the last time she saw her husband, he was brought to a funeral home in Baton Rouge, not far from Baker, La., where the couple lived.
She said she knew it was her husband’s wish that his body be utilized to help the advancement of science if possible, but “I didn’t know he was going to be … put on display like a performing bear or something. I only consented to body donations for scientific purposes. That’s the way my husband wanted it. To say the least, I'm upset.”
A company from Las Vegas – Med Ed Labs – took possession of David Saunders after his death, with his family’s permission, for the purpose of medical research, then passed him on to a different company, Death Science, which operates out of Portland, Ore.
Med Ed Labs manager Obteen Nassiri told NBC News he did not know what Death Science’s intent for David Saunders’s remains would be.
On October 17, as part of an event called the Oddities and Curiosities Expo in the ballroom of the Portland Marriott Hotel, an audience that paid for tickets ranging from $100 to upwards of $500 got to watch David Saunders receive a public autopsy during a presentation titled “Dissection of a Human Cadaver.”
“We didn’t know about the Curiosity Expo at all,” Nassiri said.
“I would not be involved in anything like that.”
However, Death Science refutes Nassiri’s plausible deniability, saying Med Ed Labs and Death Science were partners in the event.
“Med Ed Labs was aware of the course," the company said in an email to NBC News. "Death Science partnered with Med Ed Labs and it was in direct contact with Med Ed Lab, specifically, Obteen Nassiri for multiple months leading up to the course, including, but not limited to, the fact that attendees are not exclusively medical students and ticket sales.”
In the end there may be little recourse for Elsie Saunders or her deceased husband. The Portland Police Bureau says there are no criminal laws on the books covering what occurred, though Elsie may be able to receive justice through a civil suit. Even that though is unclear.
For now, Nassiri says he has apologized to Elsie Saunders and taken responsibility for not checking further into what use Death Science may have had for David Saunders’s body. “We should have been more arduous and done more investigative research to find out exactly what they were doing,” he said.
And as for David Saunders, his body is back at Med Ed Labs, and Nassiri says Saunders will be cremated and returned to his family in the “short future.”
