Over 300 Fetuses Found In Garage

[bloodrayne]

Task Starts To Identify Over 300 Fetuses

Remains found in McKeesport garage

Pennsylvania - Pathologists examining fetuses found inside a McKeesport garage will need weeks to identify the remains, but even then might not be 100 percent successful.

The number of fetuses discovered has jumped from an early estimate of several dozen to more than 300.

The Allegheny County coroner's office took stock of the shocking discovery and busied itself yesterday with matching fetal information to cases at Magee-Womens Hospital.

Investigators were treading on unfamiliar territory since the discovery Saturday at the detached garage of a house that once belonged to former funeral director Robert B. Winston Jr. of McKeesport.

Authorities said Winston's onetime funeral home, Newman-Winston Memorial Chapel, had a contract with Magee to turn over fetal remains to a crematory from 1999 to 2002.

"We've never had a case like this before," Chief Deputy Coroner Joseph Dominick said yesterday.

At least some of those remains were apparently turned over to Pittsburgh Cremation Service in Ross. Owner Fred Donatelli confirmed yesterday that Winston had brought fetal remains from the Oakland hospital to his business for cremation between 1999 and 2002, but he could not say how many.

Donatelli said his staff typically does not check the contents of the container brought to him for cremation, so he could not say definitively that Winston brought him actual human remains.

The coroner's office yesterday subpoenaed "any paperwork that Mr. Winston had given us through activity with Magee-Womens Hospital," Donatelli said.

As news of the discovery spread, women who had lost babies at Magee wondered if the remains of their children were among those stored in the garage in the 1800 block of Evans Street.

Dominick said the coroner's office was sorting out not only whose remains they had but how authorities would proceed with contacting families and handling arrangements.

"At this point they should just sit tight. Our plan is once we have made positive identification of what we have here, we are going to reach out to the family and let them know," Dominick said.

Allegheny County police are investigating, but are in a holding pattern until the coroner's office completes its examination, Assistant Superintendent James Morton said.

It was not a certainty that criminal charges would arise from the case, despite its bizarre and unsettling nature. But Morton said that charges of abuse of a corpse might pertain, depending on certain variables.

Winston's attorney James Ecker said yesterday that Winston is cooperating with county police.

The fetuses were discovered by Winston's ex-wife, Renee Brooks, who broke into the padlocked garage. Dominick said she stumbled upon 27 stacked cardboard moving boxes labeled on the outside with such things as "medical waste," "fetuses" and "autopsy cases for Winston Funeral Home."

Brooks called McKeesport police, who contacted the county.

Inside each deteriorating box, investigators found one or more plastic biohazard waste bags. Within each bag were multiple plastic containers akin to Tupperware, some quart-sized, others bigger.

Fetal remains from less than 16 weeks to full-term babies were stored in embalming fluid inside those containers. In some cases, smaller containers were found inside larger ones, and fetal remains had been commingled and displaced into plastic bags, Dominick said.

Many, but not all, of the containers were labeled with a magic marker by autopsy number or name.

"A lot of these cases will never be able to be identified through any scientific testing," Dominick said, noting that fetuses could not be identified through fingerprints, dental records or, possibly, even DNA testing.

He said the coroner's office is working with personnel from Magee's risk management office and the county police to obtain a copy of the contract with Winston.

Magee would not make the contract available yesterday and issued a one-sentence statement asserting that the hospital "at all times has acted in accordance with all state, county and local regulations and at patient request."

UPMC Health System spokeswoman Jane Duffield refused to answer questions about Magee's procedures governing disposal of fetal remains and would not even confirm a contract with Winston.

"We're not a big part of this story at all and we don't want to be," Duffield said.

State Department of Health spokesman Richard McGarvey said his department is not involved in the investigation. But generally, he said, hospitals are required to make arrangements to dispose of biological materials either in their own incinerators or with a third party, usually a funeral director.

Winston has been active in McKeesport community affairs. He served on its civil service commission, has been an officer and member of the McKeesport chapter of the NAACP, and has been a volunteer for other boards and organizations.

Years ago, Winston went to work for the Charles W. Newman Funeral Home. He bought it and renamed the business when Newman, who died 11 years ago, retired in 1992.

"He's long been involved in the community," said McKeesport District Judge Thomas Brletic. "People are surprised by this."

In recent weeks, Winston has been living in an apartment in Isbir Manor, a high-rise building in the McKeesport Housing Authority's Harrison Village complex. According to court documents filed in Brletic's office, the authority on Aug. 4 filed a complaint against Winston seeking back rent of $384.

A hearing on the case was scheduled for last Tuesday, but it was postponed until today, after Winston contacted Brletic's office and pledged to pay the money he owed. Court officials said they did not know if he had done so by yesterday.

[ItsAlive75]

What do you get when you toss 300 fetuses in a garage?


Your own thread, apparently.:p

[SPLATTERGORIA]

What the hell was he doing with those foetii? You definitely need to do a follow up on this one when they figure it out.