Veterans' bodies are carved up and sold for parts without permission

Modern-day grave robbers in Texas have seized unclaimed bodies belonging to veterans and sold their limbs for profit without the consent or knowledge from their grieving family members.

Victor Carl Honey, 58, a dedicated Army veteran, who struggled with mental illness, died in September 2022 of heart failure.

Honey was among the 2,350 people whose remains were sent to the body donation program at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort-Worth.

However, a month after his death, the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Officer deemed Honey's body 'unclaimed' after they said phones for relatives were disconnected  even though his ex-wife and two adult children were living in the state. 

Honey's body was kept in a freezer before it was cut up and shipped piecemeal across the country. 

His torso was sold to a medical education company for $900; his right leg shipped to a Swedish medical device manufacturer for $341; the bones from his skull were sent to the U.S. Army for $210 for military training purposes.

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During NBC News' bombshell investigation, it was also revealed that Honey's corpse was not the only one sold to science in the Dallas-Fort-Worth region; hundreds of other corpses were collected from nursing homes, hospital beds and homeless encampments - and sold on the open market. 

Honey's body parts were also sent to medical, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies including Johnson & Johnson, Boston Scientific and Medtronic - used for scientific research and the testing of new products.

According to the report, once the medical groups and others were finished using the unclaimed bodies' remains, they were cremated, buried or scattered at sea - despite some families still looking for their loved ones.

For the last five years, the body donation program at the Health Science Center was thriving under the agreement the school had with Dallas and Tarrant counties taking the unclaimed bodies for free.

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Of the 2,350 bodies that were collected, 830 were selected by the center for dissection and to be studied. The center charged $1,400 for whole bodies. Heads went for $649, torsos for $900.

According to financial records obtained by NBC News, the agreement appeared to be a was a win-win for all parties involved.

Nationwide, tens of thousands of bodies go unclaimed and local medical examiners and coroners have to bear the costs of cremation or burial - under the agreement the Dallas and Tarrant counties were able to save a combined million a year, financial records revealed. 

The Health Science Center also benefitted by making $2.5 million a year by leasing body parts to medical groups. At one point, the Health Science Center publicized the bodies 'as being the highest quality found anywhere in the U.S.'

The majority of unclaimed bodies were black males, who were mentally ill and homeless and whose family members were difficult to reach or were unable or did not want to pay for cremation or burial, the report found.

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NBC News' report, compiled over 10 months, also cited repeated failures to reach family members before declaring their bodies unclaimed.

According to the news outlet, they identified 12 cases where family learned months or years later that their loved one's body was provided to the medical school - leaving many traumatized.

Five of those families found out what happened to their loved one by NBC including, Kimberly Patman, the ex-wife of Honey, who share two adult children, a son Victor Honey, Jr. and a daughter named Victoria. 

Patman and Honey were married for ten years. They had met when both were in the military Texas Fort Hood. He was training as a medic and she was an Air Force enlistee. 

The couple separated due to Honey's infidelity. He was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia but refused to take his medication and ended up spending time in federal prison for stealing a car and robbing three banks in three different states.

When he was released he had another run in with the law and later became homeless living on the streets of Dallas.

His family told NBC News that they had visited him in the hospital when they learned from his caseworker that his kidney's were failing. Once he improved, he refused to go to a nursing home and checked himself out of the hospital.

On September 19, 2022, he was found semi-conscious in a wheelchair at a downtown Dallas train station and taken to Baylor University Medical Center. He died the next day. 

Once the hospital social worker was unable to find his family, his body was sent to the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Officer, but they were unable to locate next of kin.

The case was turned over to the county investigator tried to get information from police and area hospitals but unable to locate relatives. After searching the internet, she found numbers for Patman, Honey's brother in Ohio, his stepmother and his late father, but she reported they were disconnected. 

On October 17, 2022, the investigator wrote that her search was complete and no family was found. The medical examiner's office deemed Honey's body unclaimed.

That same day, Honey was delivered to the University of North Texas Health Science Center, where he was placed in a freezer, awaiting assignment.

'I don't believe they tried to find us,' said Patman distressed by the events that occurred. 'That is crazy. We are here. We have always been here. His son has his same name. How can he be unclaimed?'

'They did it for money,' she sad. 'They did it to him a decorated military veteran - they'll do it to anybody.'

Brenda Cloud, one of Honey's sisters said 'we feel violated.'  'It's like a hole in your soul that can never be filled,' she said.

Daily Mail made several attempts to contact Kimberly Patman, their son Victor Honey, Jr., and Brenda Cloud. 

Two other cases include a man whose body was sent to the Health Science Center unclaimed though his family were actively searching for him and filed a missing person's report.

Another was of a woman whose family learned of her death and her transfer to HSC after a real estate agent called about selling her house. 

The University of North Texas Health Science Center defended their practices until last Friday when they issued a statement that they were suspending its body donation program and and firing the officials who led it. 

The HSC center did not respond to the DailyMail.com's request for comment, however on September 13, they issued an apology to the families affected.

'We have become aware of issues within our Willed Body Program, and that failures existed in its management and oversight. The program has fallen short of the standards of respect, care, and professionalism that we demand,' they wrote in part.

'The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth extends its deepest apologies to the families who have been impacted.

'We are committed to operating all programs with transparency, integrity and the highest ethical standards, and we are dedicated to maintaining trust in our institution.'

'We hope these actions can ensure our educational studies are made with every effort to show dignity, grace and respect.'

The Health Science Center's president, Sylvia Trent-Adams, announced the decision in an email to stop accepting unclaimed bodies on Monday following the NBC News investigation.

Trent-Adams said leadership had been unaware that the body program was routinely shipping unclaimed remains — including those of U.S. military veterans — across state lines.

On Tuesday, Tarrant County commissioners voted to accept the Health Science Center's decision to terminate the agreement.

Judge Tim O'Hare, the county's top elected official, said commissioners were in agreement: 'No one's body should be used for medical research absent their pre-death consent or the consent of a loved one,' he said before the unanimous vote. 

'And certainly no one's body should be sold for profit absent consent one way or the other.'