Alastair Cooke's bones may have been stolen, sold

NEW YORK – Authorities are investigating allegations that the body of British broadcaster Alistair Cooke — among hundreds of others — was illegally carved up in the back room of a funeral home and sold so its parts could be used in transplants.

Officials confirmed this week that investigators found paperwork indicating Cooke's bones had been removed and sold by Biomedical Tissue Services, a Fort Lee, N.J., tissue bank, before he was cremated.

Cooke, longtime host of PBS' "Masterpiece Theatre" and known around the world for his "Letter From America" shows on the BBC, died from cancer last year at age 95 in New York.

His family said it never agreed to the bone removal and that someone falsified documents by changing Cooke's cause of death to heart attack and by lowering his age to 85.

A day after his death, Cooke's bones were allegedly sold for about $7,000 to two transplant companies. The family was supplied with what they were told were his ashes, and scattered them in Central Park.

A daughter, Susan Cooke Kittredge, said the family was "shocked and saddened" by the news.

"That people in need would have received his body parts, considering his age and the fact he was ill when he died, is appalling to the family, as is that his remains were violated," she said.

A phone number listed for Biomedical Tissue Services was disconnected.