Originally Posted by Fox News

Thursday, June 17, 2010
Southwest Finds Shipment of Human Heads on Plane

Southwest Airlines (LUV: 12.27, -0.08, -0.65%) has undoubtedly confiscated scores of odd objects placed on their airplanes over the years but this one has to top the list: a shipment of 40 to 60 human heads.

According to an NBC station in Dallas-Forth Worth, a Southwest employee in Little Rock, Ark., called in authorities last week after finding a shipment of human heads that wasn’t labeled or properly packaged.

While authorities worried the human remains were being used as part of a black market for research, Minneapolis-based medical company Medtronic (MDT: 38.85, -0.14, -0.36%) said they were being transported to one of their offices in Fort Worth.

A Medtronic spokesman said it’s normal to ship body parts for medical education but that it’s rare for a shipment to be seized, the NBC station reported. The spokesman said the shipment included 40 pairs of temporal bone ear blocks and four full cranial specimens.

Medtronic said the supplier was JLS Consulting of Wynne, Ark., which reportedly had its license revoked in December.

"Nothing is wrong…We're providing the documentation,” Janice Hepler, the founder of JLS, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

However, Garland Camper, the Pulaski County coroner, told the NBC affiliate that there are “discrepancies” in the documentation.

"We just want to make sure these specimens aren't part of that underground trade," Campter said.