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Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Two Americans Accused of Stealing Infant Body Parts From Bangkok Medical Museum

     On Saturday November 15, 2014, workers at a DHL office in Thailand's Pathum Thani province noticed something gruesome while scanning packages destined for the U.S. The discovery caused a DHL manager to notify the Royal Thai Police.

     Inside five plastic boxes officers discovered an infant's head, a baby's left foot sliced into three pieces, an adult heart, and patches of human skin.

     Thai investigators questioned Ryan Edward McPherson and Daniel Jamon Tanner, the Americans who had tried to ship the body parts out of the country. The men claimed to have purchased the body parts at a flea market for $100. The idea was, they said, to shock their friends back home.

     Notwithstanding the fact McPherson and Tanner could not remember the location of the flea market, the Thai authorities, unsure if these men had broken any laws, released them without criminal charges. The men said they were headed to Cambodia.

     On Monday November 17, 2014, Thai detectives determined that the infant body parts had been stolen from the Siriraj Medical Museum within Bangkok's Sirira Hospital. The items had been taken from the forensic medicine section of the museum.

     Closed-circuit camera footage from the hospital showed that McPherson and Tanner had visited the institution on the day the body parts went missing. A Thai judge, that Monday, approved arrest warrants for the two Americans on charges of theft from a government hospital. If convicted as charged, McPherson and Tanner could be locked up abroad for up to seven years.

     In Thailand, infant body parts are purchased on the black market by people who believe they possess the power of black magic. Believers make these macabre acquisitions for protection, good luck, and success in business. In this case, the stolen body parts brought McPherson and Tanner no protection and plenty of bad luck. 

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