"Body Snatching" in Texas

In August 2015, the remains of Julie Mott were removed by an unknown person or persons from a Texas funeral home shortly after the funeral concluded.  The article notes that “body snatching,” which was more common in the past, is the “technical term for a body stolen from a grave.”  It also asserts that bodies are frequently stolen for allografts, as an act of political protest, or for sex.  However, “body snatching” is the improper term to describe the situation here because body snatching is “the act or practice of robbing a grave to obtain a cadaver for dissection.” Although it is unknown whether the corpse will be dissected, the body was stolen from a funeral home, not from a grave, so it is technically not considered “body snatching.”   

Under Texas law, the individual who removed the corpse from the funeral home without authorization would likely be charged under Texas Penal Code § 42.08(a) "abuse of a corpse."  This statute provides that a:

person commits an offense if the person, without legal authority, knowingly: (1) disinters, disturbs, damages, dissects, in whole or in part, carries away, or treats in an offensive manner a human corpse; (2) conceals a human corpse knowing it to be illegally disinterred; (3) sells or buys a human corpse or in any way traffics in a human corpse; (4) transmits or conveys, or procures to be transmitted or conveyed, a human corpse to a place outside the state; or (5) vandalizes, damages, or treats in an offensive manner the space in which a human corpse has been interred or otherwise permanently laid to rest.

Here, the individual who removed the corpse from the funeral home did not have legal authority and knowingly carried away the corpse.  Thus, the individual would likely be charged under Texas Penal Code § 42.08(a)(1). 

Brittany Colton