The family of Alistair Cooke, the late veteran BBC broadcaster, expressed horror Thursday at reports in New York that his bones may have been stolen by a criminal gang trading in body parts.
Cooke, who presented "Letter From America" every week on BBC domestic and World Service radio for more than 50 years, died in New York in March 2004 from lung cancer which spread to his bones.
The New York Daily News reported Thursday that some of the 95-year-old Englishman's bones were taken before his cremation, without the family's permission, and are thought to have been sold for transplants.
"I'm furious. I'm enraged. I'm outraged," his stepdaughter Holly Rumbold told BBC radio. "My stepfather is not the only one that's been used for this macabre purpose and people are making billions of dollars out of it."
Cooke was one of the BBC's longest-serving and best-loved foreign correspondents, interpreting a sometimes bewildering United States for a global audience from his book-lined Upper East Side apartment.
He was also famous among Americans as host of "Masterpiece Theatre" on PBS public television, and for the 1970s BBC series "Alistair Cooke's America", which set the standard for presenting history on television.
Rumbold recalled that on the night Cooke died, "the undertakers collected him, (and) his ashes -- or what we thought were his ashes -- were returned the next day".
"They were scattered in Central Park -- who knows, maybe some of the ashes were his -- how do you know? It defies the imagination."
She added: "I'm most shocked by the violation of the medical ethics that my stepfather's ancient and cancerous bones should have been passed off as healthy tissue to innocent patients in their quest for better health."
"For example, someone with a damaged spine could have it repaired by implanting cancerous bone and paying thousands of pounds for the procedure and I think it's the wickedest idea I have ever heard of."
The Daily News said Thursday that an investigation was being carried out by the Brooklyn district attorney's office into a tissue recovery business.
It noted that "after processing, Cooke's bones could have been used for dental implants or numerous orthopedic procedures including dowels for damaged spines".