A son accused of removing flesh from his father’s corpse at a funeral parlour in Queensland was allegedly trying to preserve his stem cells.
Brian Wong, 47, Cassandra Hunter, 43, and Changmin Koo, 38, allegedly turned up at Swanborough Funerals in Browns Plains, Logan, for a body viewing, and asked the director to leave the room for “cultural reasons”.
Staff watching on CCTV then allegedly saw Wong and Koo remove a 5cm piece from the corpse of Wong’s father, Roger Tai Wong-Too-Yuen, who died at 82, The Courier Mail reported.
Wong allegedly fled the scene with a bag of cutting implements after being confronted by staff, but was arrested hours later. Hunter and Koo were arrested at the premises.
All three were charged with entering a premises with intent to commit an offence, being armed with the intent of committing an offence, and misconduct with a corpse by interfering, over the alleged November 6 incident.
According to court documents, Wong and Hunter enlisted Koo online to help them extract the piece of tissue, and turned up at the funeral home with cutting implements and other medical equipment in their bags and pockets.
“Wong and Hunter have then removed a sheet covering the lower half of the deceased’s body, exposing his legs. The defendant Koo has applied surgical gloves and then taken possession of the cutting implements, namely a scalpel, scissors and blades,” police allege in the court documents.
“Whilst defendant Hunter acted as a lookout, defendant Wong has assisted defendant Koo in the incision and removal of a piece of the deceased’s right thigh approximately 5cm in diameter, exposing the muscle.
“The defendant Koo has then placed the piece of the deceased’s thigh in a container which was held by defendant Wong. Defendant Wong has then given this container to defendant Hunter and instructed her to conceal it in her pockets.”
Police allege Wong removed the flesh to preserve his father’s stem cells, but it is not clear why he allegedly wanted to do so.
Director Esther Swanborough previously told 9News that when she entered the room after the alleged offence the trio were “acting very suspicious”, and said she asked them “what have you done?”
“I was shocked that this has [allegedly] happened. We’ve never seen anything like this before,” she said.
“We obviously, during this whole process, had the best intentions to be able to care for this family well, not realising that we were being tricked into something very different.”
Wong, who has been in custody since his arrest had a bail application set down for Friday, but it was adjourned until Monday for a bail address to be finalised. Hunter and Koo’s cases have also been adjourned.
Header image: Left, the funeral parlour. Right, Ms Swanborough (9News).
