TN TN - MCEWEN, human heart found in salt pile - adult male - 16 Dec 2022

[MarziPanda]

I'm also reminded of this case:
UK - Lincs, Partial Human Remains, Apr'19

More recently they said they suspect the leg is medical waste and were asking for women who have had a left foot removed to come forward: New Waltham severed foot: Police seek help from female amputees

As far as I know there's been no updates since then... but it does show that it happens. Somehow. I'm starting to lean towards medical waste etc. The heart may have been medical waste thrown out in the garbage/on the side of the road and then brought in by an animal or by a gritting vehicle returning unused salt.

 

[RickshawFan]

Fantastic research @diggndeeperstill . I don't think the gate would be hard to get over at all. Look how short it is, if you consider height against the garbage can, truck front ends, etc.

However, the heart could easily have come in on the truck that delivered the salt...I would say this is more likely than originating at the find facility. Heck, it could've been lobbed in at a truck stop on the way. Whoever did it might not even have known it was a salt truck. They could have thought it was a long-haul garbage truck headed for a landfill or one of those big-boy Tonka gigantic lorry macho trucks that our road guys LOVE to drive in snow season or for gravel deliveries, headed to a construction site, perhaps to be mixed into cement.

Another idea....someone tossed it off a bridge onto a passing truck with no roof. This would be quite the method for getting rid of murdered body parts....

 

[airportwoman]

It’s not just medical waste or funeral directors. Medical professionals & even some pharma sales reps practice techniques on cadaver parts. Continuing ed classes with cadavers are sometimes held at hotels. There are usually strict guidelines for cadaver classes (starting with a rule that cadavers can’t be visible from the door if a guest wanders into the wrong ballroom) but I’m sure deviations happen. Perhaps a hotel worker wanted to prank someone?

Brief overview of cadaver courses: Cadavers in the ballroom: Doctors practice their craft at U.S. hotels

One example of guidelines for cadaver classes in hotels (section F): https://www.asra.com/docs/default-s...licy_cadaver_workshops.docx?sfvrsn=d0416688_6

Mary Roach's wonderful book "Stiff" opens with such a story - plastic surgeons learning new facelift techniques on donated heads, in a hotel ballroom.

If you aren't familiar with her, she's a science writer who writes very entertaining books about things most people would rather not think about. Her most recent book, "Fuzz", is about wildlife management.

 

[airportwoman]

I'm also reminded of this case:
UK - Lincs, Partial Human Remains, Apr'19

More recently they said they suspect the leg is medical waste and were asking for women who have had a left foot removed to come forward: New Waltham severed foot: Police seek help from female amputees

As far as I know there's been no updates since then... but it does show that it happens. Somehow. I'm starting to lean towards medical waste etc. The heart may have been medical waste thrown out in the garbage/on the side of the road and then brought in by an animal or by a gritting vehicle returning unused salt.

In the U.S., medical waste is burned. If a person wants the body part back, usually to be buried with them when their time comes, that can be arranged.

 

[Puzzleworth]

It seems like the medical examiners have DNA (at least enough to tell the person had a Y chromosome) so it's unlikely to have been a properly-preserved anatomical specimen. The same for most legal burials. As the Bath feet that iamshadow mentioned above show, embalming chemicals destroy DNA.

 

[RickshawFan]

If the heart was a learning specimen, it would also have formaldehyde traces? Unless salt interacts with those chemicals.

 

[Goecke]

They might be basing the idea that this is a man's heart based on size, not DNA. It was tennis-ball-sized after being dehydrated in the salt. The average person's heart is about the same size as their fist. As a petite woman, my fist is about the size of a tennis ball, so I assume this heart had to belong to a much larger person.

 

[GRT]

I just can't help thinking that I hope they don't process that salt for human consumption. I surely don't want to think of the salt I put on my popcorn as having been too close to human remains.

But, maybe it was road salt, or something.

 

[Laughing]

I just can't help thinking that I hope they don't process that salt for human consumption. I surely don't want to think of the salt I put on my popcorn as having been too close to human remains.

But, maybe it was road salt, or something.

Road salt delivered to the Tennessee Department of Transposition:

Tennessee Transportation Workers Find Human Heart in Salt Pile, Authorities Say

An initial examination of the heart showed it belonged to a man

people.com

 

[Gingervitis777]

I've worked in DOT related fields for almost a decade, and I've worked with more than my fair share of... weirdos, for lack of a better term, and it is not that far out of my realm of belief that someone with a morbid sense of humor, and access to body parts (a la funeral home or morgue or things such as), could place it in the pile to prank a coworker. For example: " I know Billy Bob is working the salt brine mixer tomorrow, this oughta scare him real nice, or this'll teach him to steal my lunch out the 'fridgerater, etc..." I know a guy who went to get in his truck one morning and someone had put a freshly severed pig's head on his front seat with a note saying, "With love, from Johnny" Gotta love Wild and Wonderful West-By-Golly Virginia

 

[airportwoman]

It seems like the medical examiners have DNA (at least enough to tell the person had a Y chromosome) so it's unlikely to have been a properly-preserved anatomical specimen. The same for most legal burials. As the Bath feet that iamshadow mentioned above show, embalming chemicals destroy DNA.

Embalming removes blood, but it doesn't destroy DNA in other cells. Modern DNA testing can still get a profile, from a single intact cell.

 

[5W's]

Discovery of human heart in salt barn now treated as homicide case

TBI agents are now investigating the case of a human heart found in a TDOT salt barn. They hope to track the origin of the salt delivery and see a DNA match on the heart.

www.newschannel5.com

The case is now being treated as a homicide, which is now in the hands of TBI to determine where the heart came from, who it came from and why it ended up in a salt bar. They know there was only the adult human heart believed to be from a male.
...
Those who have seen it describe the heart as dehydrated from the salt — about the size of a tennis ball. They told NewsChannel 5 it appeared undamaged as though it had been surgically removed.
...
Morton provides bulk salt for roads in Tennessee and draws from some 20 facilities across the country.

For now, there's no evidence the heart came from any of those facilities.

And second, the crime lab is working on a DNA sample from the heart ..View attachment 389018


------
I believe the salt barn to be the curved structure on the right side of the image by the arrow.
I believe the heart to have been found in that pile of salt where the people are by the dump truck.
I wanted to find the exact address to see how difficult to enter this area as I would imagine it is fenced off.
I then found this article.

A HUMAN HEART DISCOVERED IN TDOT SALT BARN IN HUMPHREY'S COUNTY - 3B Media News

MCEWEN, Tenn.(WSMV) – A human heart has been discovered in the Tennessee Department of Transportation’s salt barn in McEwen. According to Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis, TDOT workers were combining products to make brine on Thursday. As workers were retrieving salt from their barn, they...

3bmedianews.com

According to Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis, TDOT workers were combining products to make brine on Thursday. As workers were retrieving salt from their barn, they discovered what they believed to be a weirdly shaped rock.
.....

This makes sense to me. They were taking the salt from the barn by a dump truck and combining and found the heart then. I wonder if there is any way other parts would have been missed prior?

This article even shows the heart I believe.

Human heart found in Tennessee salt storage facility

A startling discovery was made while Tennessee Department of Transportation workers were preparing for inclement weather.

www.wpsdlocal6.com

View attachment 389023


So here is the location of the salt barn. 10241 Hwy 70 E · 10241 Hwy 70 E, McEwen, TN 37101View attachment 389025


View attachment 389027

Front view on one side. I am willing to bet that gate rolls and locks at the end of the day on this side.

View attachment 389028
And this is the other side.



Super strange. And it definitely seems like if it was placed here directly in this facility it was done w/ some purpose and intense motivation. I hope that DNA can be found and I hope no other body parts turn up anywhere strange.

So its gated. Gates are probably monitored and may have sensors om the fencing. Probably has security guards & CCTV on the property. Yes, its a large property, but then it is probably patrolled also. So how?

 

[ChatteringBirds]

it is not that far out of my realm of belief that someone with a morbid sense of humor, and access to body parts (a la funeral home or morgue or things such as), could place it in the pile to prank a coworker.

Quote snipped by me.
It would be a very disrespectful thing to do, but maybe you're right.
How long do the salt piles sit there before being processed?

 

[cutter99]

Quote snipped by me.
It would be a very disrespectful thing to do, but maybe you're right.
How long do the salt piles sit there before being processed?

The salt piles are fairly seasonal in TN. TDOT does not leave much in them at the end of the season.

I would bet TDOT knows exactly how many loads have gone out of each and every salt shed in the state in any given year. They probably adjust their salt inventory to make sure there is none left sitting over the warm weather months.

 

[wendybtn]

It couldn't have been there that long. The acidity of the road salt would have destroyed it over a small amount of time.

 

[wendybtn]

The salt piles are fairly seasonal in TN. TDOT does not leave much in them at the end of the season.

I would bet TDOT knows exactly how many loads have gone out of each and every salt shed in the state in any given year. They probably adjust their salt inventory to make sure there is none left sitting over the warm weather months.

I drive down the highways of Tennessee often and at DOT stations you see the salt piles under tarps, if you look.

 

[Shamrock1]

I just can't help thinking that I hope they don't process that salt for human consumption. I surely don't want to think of the salt I put on my popcorn as having been too close to human remains.

But, maybe it was road salt, or something.

Road salt. (But as a side note, charred animal bones are sometimes used to process sugar.)

 

[raja]

Road salt. (But as a side note, charred animal bones are sometimes used to process sugar.)

I wonder if vegetarians know that.

 

[blackbeary]

Very mysterious case

 

[DFWNF]

In the U.S., medical waste is burned. If a person wants the body part back, usually to be buried with them when their time comes, that can be arranged.

Yes, not relevant with a heart imo, but I was told many years ago by a doctor with amputations that they will save body parts for a burial of a whole body when someone eventually passes away, I was told Jewish faith requires it. Jme.