The Body Snatcher

Posted: 5 March 2009 A disgraced dentist carves out a gruesome new business. From a secret room in a Brooklyn funeral home he runs a multi-million dollar business… cutting up corpses and stripping the bodies for parts. American Greed profiles the dark corner of commerce.

Michael Mastromarino greed goes beyond the grave.   He set up a business harvesting human tissue.   Mastromarino was a modern day body snatcher.

Source: New York Daily News Mastromarino was once a well respected maxillofacial surgeon. He lived in the life of luxury in Fort Lee, NJ with his wife and children until he lost his dental license in the late 1990s for using drugs while on the job.

Source: New York Daily News Mastromarino next turned to the tissue trade... a worldwide multi-billion dollar business. He set up shop by renting a room at the Daniel George Funeral Home in Brooklyn, NY. Long familiar with the need for human tissue to repair knees, hips and spinal discs, Mastromarino also knew the business and loopholes that allow suppliers to make big money.

Source: New York Daily News When Michael Mastromarino started Biomedical Tissue Services he quickly ran into a problem... grieving families were unwilling to donate their loved ones tissue. So Mastromarino began to steal it. Unbeknownst to the families, he harvested skin, bones, and tendons from corpses without consent.

Source: New York Daily News Joseph Nicelli was an embalmer by profession and the perfect partner for Michael Mastromarino. He formerly owned the Daniel George Funeral Home. Nicelli was paid a $1000 finder's fee for every body he supplied.

Source: AP Graphics Bank Lee Cruceta was Mastromarino's chief cutter and took the job on a promise of making more than $300,000 a year.

Source: Brooklyn DA's office Christopher Aldorasi was another cutter who worked alongside Mastromarino and Lee Cruceta.

Source: Vito Bruno Michael Bruno was a New York City cab driver whose body was mined for bone and tissue by Michael Mastromarino and his crew of cutters.

Source: KP Rose Opera wanted to be cremated. Instead, her body was cut up without consent. Her skin and bones were sold to tissue processing companies.

Source: Karen Del Re Biomedical Tissue Services fabricated James Thornton's medical history and forged the consent form. His skin, bones and tendons were sold to a Florida firm. Thornton's family is doubtful the ashes they received are even his.

Source: Brooklyn DA's Office To avoid detection in the funeral home, the cutters would replace harvested bone with PVC pipes.   Bodies that were cremated were harvested without limits.

Source: Brooklyn DA's Office Another X-ray showing where the team of cutters took bone and replaced it with plumber's pipe or PVC pipe. They also stuffed the body with gloves, paper and other trash to simulate flesh and muscle. Families of the deceased were unaware their loved ones body parts had been sold.

Source: Brooklyn DA's office The cutting room inside the Daniel George Funeral Home was described as unhygienic with conditions ripe for the spread of disease. Officials say some bodies were harvested despite being contaminated with serious communicable diseases.

Source: Betty Pfaff Betty Pfaff almost died from a septic infection she contracted from contaminated tissue harvested by Mastromarino's crew of cutters.  At one point her fever spiked at 106 degrees.  Doctors gave her only a 20% chance of survival, but Betty beat the odds.

Brooklyn Prosecutor Michael Vecchione began his investigation after the new owner of the Daniel George Funeral Home became suspicious of Mastromarino's operation. Vecchione says a trail of forged donor forms led back to Biomedical Tissue Supply.  Vecchione:  "I had never seen anything like this. It was evil."

Source: AP Images Michael Mastromarino plundered a thousand bodies and sold the body parts for four million dollars. He is now serving a sentence of 18 to 54 years in a New York State prison for body stealing, reckless endangerment and enterprise corruption.Find out more...Replay slideshowReview "The Body Snatcher" case file