Rolia Whitinger's family will lay him to rest today after a six-year legal battle, an FBI investigation and a failed appeal to the Texas Legislature.
The burial will be held at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio and comes seven years after Whitinger's death. UT Medical Branch spokeswoman Marsha Canright said the burial marks the end of a dispute between the Whitinger family and the Galveston-based UTMB, where in the fall of 1998 Whitinger had chosen to donate his body upon his death.
"We feel this brings the willed-body conflict between the family and the university to an end," Canright said.
The Daily Texan reported in 2005 that the Willed Body Program at UTMB was led by the now deceased Allen Tyler and was shut down in 2002 following a routine audit that revealed the ashes of more than 70 bodies had been mixed together. It was also discovered that Tyler sold $18,000 worth of fingernails from cadavers at the program to a pharmaceutical company in Salt Lake City. He had also sold torsos to a man named Agostino Perna, who sold the torsos overseas. Tyler was fired in 2002.
The Whitinger family received a letter in July 2002 from UTMB telling them that Rolia Whitinger's remains had been commingled with the ashes of other donors and that they could not be returned to the family. Families of individuals who had donated their bodies could not sue because UTMB is a branch of the state and has legal immunity without legislative approval. A bill failed in 2005 that requested to remove UTMB's immunity so the school would be held responsible for the lawsuits against it.
According to a 2007 UTMB blog post quoting a San Antonio news station, during a meeting between the Whitinger family and UTMB officials in 2007, the family was informed that Rolia's head, shoulders, arms and knees had been found. UTMB officials said the remains could not be returned without being cremated, as required by the Texas Anatomical Board.
In May, John Whitinger asked a legislative committee for help to keep the body parts intact, and the committee urged UTMB to release the body parts to a funeral home in New Braunfels. The family requested that the remains be returned without being cremated, but the school would not release the body parts until the family released the school from any claims or demands of any kind for what happened in the Willed Body Program, the Austin American-Statesman reported.
Canright said a UT System lawyer met with the family in July and Rolia's non-cremated remains were handed over Aug. 7 to the Zoeller Funeral Home in New Braunfels, where some members of the Whitinger family live. The family did not sign any agreement, Canright said.
"The remains were simply returned and sent to the funeral home with the hope that this provides closure for the family and for the university," she said.
The only listed phone number for the Whitinger family was disconnected.
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