This article is part of “Dealing the Dead,” an NBC News series investigating the use of unclaimed bodies for medical research.
For five years, the unclaimed dead of Dallas and Tarrant counties were delivered to the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth.
There, the bodies were assessed based on their usefulness to medical science: Those that tested positive for infectious diseases or had begun to decompose were cremated.
The rest — more than 830 out of some 2,350 corpses since 2019 — were embalmed or placed in freezers. Some were selected to train future doctors and nurses. Others were cut into pieces and leased out to medical schools, the U.S. Army and for-profit medical technology companies.
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Proponents of using unclaimed bodies for research — which is legal in most of the U.S. — have argued it makes good economic sense, saving local taxpayers thousands of dollars each year on burial costs while providing a steady stream of specimens needed to advance medicine.
But after an NBC News investigation revealed last month that at least a dozen North Texas families had been left in the dark about what happened to their missing relatives, the Health Science Center abruptly halted the use of unclaimed bodies, fired the officials who led its body donation program and apologized to the affected families. Since then, nine more people have come forward to share with NBC News that their relatives also had been given to the medical program without consent.
These survivors said they were disturbed and heartbroken to learn that their loved ones’ bodies may have been studied — and in some cases dissected and leased out across the country.
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In an effort to help families find answers, NBC News is publishing the names of more than 1,800 people whose bodies were given to the Health Science Center by Dallas and Tarrant counties since 2019. The database is based on spreadsheets of unclaimed bodies obtained through open records requests from the county medical examiners.
The vast majority of these names have not been made public previously. Tarrant County does not routinely publish the names of unclaimed people on the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUS, a free public database meant to connect the dots between reports of missing people and unclaimed bodies. Dallas County began posting names to the system in December.
In publishing this list, NBC News is sharing only a person’s name, gender, race, age at death, the date their body was delivered to the Health Science Center and whether their body was selected for study. Reporters were able to obtain certain demographic data — including age, race and gender — for only a subset of cases. If reporters found evidence that a person’s next of kin gave permission in writing to send their relative’s body to the Health Science Center, NBC News is not publishing their name. In some Tarrant County cases, information about whether the next of kin gave permission was not available.
NBC News was not able to independently confirm the accuracy of all of the information provided by the counties, so it may include misspellings or other errors. The list also does not include the names of a few dozen people whose unclaimed bodies were provided to the Health Science Center by other Texas counties.
If you believe you have found a loved one on the list, more information may be available through the Dallas or Tarrant County medical examiner’s offices or the UNT Health Science Center. The Texas State Funeral Services Commission, which regulates body donation in Texas, also may be able to provide information about how a body was used.
NBC News is continuing its reporting on the use of unclaimed bodies in Texas and nationally. If you would like to share your experience, email reporter Mike Hixenbaugh.
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