Naming the dead: Hundreds of unclaimed bodies were sent to a Texas medical school

This article is part of “Dealing the Dead,” a 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.

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.

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.