18 Heads Found At Airport Were On Their Way to Be Cremated

A package of 18 human heads was discovered by customs officials at Chicago O'Hare airport, but the package doesn't belong to a serial killer. Officials determined that the heads were medical specimens that were on their way to being cremated.

Customs officials were a bit thrown off when they discovered 18 human heads with the skin still on them in a package at the airport. However the heads were used for medical purposes in Italy and they were being returned to Illinois so they could be cremated. There was a bit confusion over where the heads came from and where they were going to due a paperwork problem.

"There's no issue with the transportation of body parts for medical purposes,"Brian Bell, a Chicago-based spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security told The Sun Times.

"There's nothing against the law that says you cannot ship them, provided you have the right documentation," he continued. Bell says that while it may seem strange to some, it is actually common for body parts to pass through airports.

"Everybody here is 'Oh my gosh, you got a box of heads' and everybody thinks that it's unheard of," Bell told the Times. "It is a potentially legitimate medical shipment. We've seen it at various ports in the nation."

The heads still contained skin and they were transported to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office to be inspected and to make sure that they are nothing more than medical specimens. Paperwork had to be sorted out before the package could be transferred to the crematory.

"The crematory has done nothing wrong. In fact, they were just here to hand all the paperwork over, and we're satisfied everything is on the up-and-up," Tony Brucci, chief of investigations at the medical examiner's office told ABC News. "We are releasing them back to the crematory soon."

As Bell pointed out, this isn't the first time a package of heads was shipped to an airport. In June 2010, a package of 60 severed heads was discovered at at Arkansas airport. These heads were also believed to be medical specimens.

The human heads are used for training purposes in fields such as dentistry, opthalmology, neurology and more. They are also used by plastic surgeons and students who are learning how to perform facial reconstruction on accident victims.