Embalmed Heads Stopped in Transit to Arkansas

First posted on 10-31-2007

“This is in the top five of the strangest things – maybe the strangest – that I’ve ever encountered,” Hunt County (Texas) Justice of the Peace Aaron Williams said Monday.

Williams was called out to the scene of a routine traffic stop Sunday morning when police made a grisly discovery – about two dozen severed human heads in the back of a tractor-trailer.

Police officers said they stopped the truck for speeding at about 2:30 am on Interstate 30. The officers said the driver was “acting suspiciously” so they decided to check the trailer. That’s when they discovered the embalmed human heads in plastic bags and containers.

Since the driver could not produce paperwork explaining why he was hauling around human heads, the officers detained him until his dispatcher could fax over the proper documentation.

As it turns out, the heads had been used in medical training in Fort Worth and were on their way back to a Little Rock hospital.

About eight hours after he was stopped – 10:30 am on Sunday – the driver and his human head cargo were allowed to continue on to Arkansas.

According to Royse City police Lt. Jim Baker, “It really turned out to be much ado about nothing.” But he added, “When you are carrying human body parts, it’s good to have some documentation that they are legitimate.”