Human bodies donated to science are used in various ways for research, education, and medical testing. Most remains will be cremated after they have been used, and either scattered or returned to their next of kin. But some end up shoved away, abandoned by the institution, and forgotten.
But one Smyrna couple is “rescuing” skeletons and bringing life back to the dead.
Everyone who steps foot through Justin Capps’ and Sonya Cobbs’ front door is greeted by Meredith.
“Meredith is the strange one here,” Justin says. “As you can see, I’m 6’6”, and Meredith’s skeleton is almost as tall as I am. That’s one of those things that is kind of indicative of a male, but from the pelvic region that is female. But some of the other features and stuff all scream male, the prominent brows and stuff like that. This is one that I would really like to get DNA tested just to make sure because I may have an anomaly of sorts here.”
Yes, you heard that right. Meredith, is a skeleton. And a real one.
Past the hallway and to the right sit Morticia and Gomez.
“Now this is a female and a male skeleton, and I like them together in this one case, even though they have a divider, because this gives me an opportunity to show people how to tell the difference between a male and a female,” Justin says.
And Further into the living room, underneath the television…
“This one here in the big blacklight lit case, this is Eve,” Justin says. “We call her Eve because she is the oldest of all the skeletons we have. We figure her to be sometime late 1700’s, early 1800’s.”
Justin and Sonya have a total of seven complete skeletons, as well as three skulls, various bones, a spine lamp, and tons of taxidermy.
But they are not collectors, Justin insists.
“They are privately held, privately maintained, and discreetly kept,” Justin says. “We do not do that. We are 100 percent public, we are federally recognized, we can be verified through the IRS. We gather these things so they can continue to be used in the public eye.”
It all started with the idea to start a medical museum. Sonya has a medical license and worked in hospice many years ago, and through her connections with other practitioners, they came across several old medical instruments and tools that Justin calls “one-of-a-kind.”
They met Tyler in 2018 at one particular oddities store they frequented – Tyler is a geriatric human skull with one tooth.
“And of course because it’s a geriatric skull and Sonya working in hospice, she fell in love with it,” Justin says.
Tyler wasn’t for sale, but Sonya and Justin talked about him a lot. In 2020, the shop owner, who the pair became friends with over the years, was forced to close his shop during the pandemic, and the couple wanted to help out.
“Due to the sum of money that it was, we would ask that we could hold Tyler in the medical collection that we were establishing,” Justin says. “And as soon as he had my money, he could come pick Tyler up and give me my money back. And if he never did that was okay too because it was very important to us that Tyler not sit in a storefront. He needed to be in a collection of some sort, a museum, something. I mean sitting in the store, it was our opportunity, so we took it and we rescued him.”
“So we’re like, you know what? I have a very unique opportunity to do something that nobody has ever seen before. Some people rescue puppies and kittens, let’s begin rescuing medical specimens.”Justin Capps on the unique opportunity to create an ossuary.
That sparked an interest in acquiring other human medical specimens. But the cost of a complete skeleton ranges anywhere from $7,000-$15,000, and it wasn’t just the price that put the couple off.
“When people gave themselves for the advancement of science and education, it was never meant to be butchered up and then pieced out for money here and there,” Justin says. “It was so people like you and I could learn from them. And unfortunately, like everything else, it becomes big business, private business that nobody wants to talk about.”
The couple was further disturbed by where these specimens were listed for sale, including Facebook Marketplace.
“So we’re like, you know what? I have a very unique opportunity to do something that nobody has ever seen before,” Justin says. “Some people rescue puppies and kittens, let’s begin rescuing medical specimens.”
Ultimately, their mission produced the Ossuary, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Anyone in the community can schedule a free visit to their home in Smyrna to see the specimens and learn more.
Justin says he has access to about 1200 skeletons through fraternal organizations in the U.S., but Sonya says there are probably tens of thousands in circulation worldwide. Most commonly, real human skeletons were found in museums or doctor’s offices and other teaching facilities, but most have been replaced with newer, cheaper, plastic replicas.
“To find out that there are so many skeletons out there that were once used this way, and now what has become of them isn’t fair, because that isn’t what was meant to happen to them,” Sonya says. “I mean, I get that they were once used in a doctor’s office and they had them there for people to see and to understand but to be sold to somebody, just, it’s not right.”
Justin says there are various ways they acquire their specimens – mostly, they solicit reputable, established businesses or organizations that are willing to donate.
“There are some instances I’ve had to put money out for shipping and insurance and stuff for the donations, but I’ve never actually physically bought any of them because we do not believe in buying previous people. To us, that is disgusting.”
You can legally buy body parts in just about every state in America. Justin says they don’t do business in Louisiana, Tennessee, or Georgia, out of caution of the states’ strict laws around transporting human remains, but by and large, human remains are considered products, “no more than the shoes on your feet,” after that person or a next of kin signs the consent forms to donate the body “to science,” Justin says.
Other Ossuary missions include rescuing unclaimed cremated remains – or cremains – some are unclaimed because they had no family or were wards of the state. Others are unclaimed because their family couldn’t afford to recover them. In that case, the Ossuary will try to reconnect the family with their loved ones’ cremains at no cost.
“Our ideal situation, we would love one day to have a church, and to create a true ossuary in the United States where we can line the inside of the church with bones, have a chandelier made out of bones, it would be amazing."Sonya Cobb describes her hopes for creating an ideal ossuary.
The handling of unclaimed cremains was another factor in the Ossuary’s creation.
“Every funeral home, they all legally, they have to hold them for so many years, and then after so many years, what do you do with them?” Sonya says. “I mean, funeral homes have shut down to the point that they’ve gone out of business and the buildings have sold with cremains still in the building.”
Before they started keeping bones they acquired, the pair would bury remains and scatter ashes on Justin’s family farm in Arkansas’ Ozark mountains – a generational cemetery where his family has been buried for more than 150 years.
Justin says if he had the space, they could take in thousands of skeletons. But due to that limitation, they try to reserve their efforts for the most urgent cases until they can expand.
Sonya explains that their ultimate goal is to build America’s first real Ossuary.
“Our ideal situation, we would love one day to have a church, and to create a true ossuary in the United States where we can line the inside of the church with bones, have a chandelier made out of bones, it would be amazing,” Sonya says. “I’ve been to one in Germany, when I lived in Germany, and it was amazing to see. And there isn’t any here in the United States and we would love to be able to do that.”
In the United States, ossuaries refer to a secondary burial site containing the remains of multiple individuals. One of the most notable is the Indian Neck Ossuary on Cape Cod – accidentally discovered during backhoe digging on a project in 1979. It produced the remains of at least 56 individuals, buried more than 1,000 years ago.
But elsewhere in the world, ossuaries were founded to house skeletal remains when cemeteries were overcrowded, and burial space scarce. Throughout ancient and medieval times and in the Catholic and other Orthodox faiths, displaying and maintaining the bones of the deceased was a way to honor the dead.
Some of the largest Ossuaries include the Sedlec and Brno Ossuaries in the Czech Republic which each hold the remains of tens of thousands of people. The Paris Catacombs are home to millions.
Most Ossuaries overseas contain the bones of former monks or parishioners and are now historical landmarks.
“So I have no way of acquiring a bunch of human beings so that I can create a church,” Sonya explains. “However if the medical specimens are technically considered “an item,” those I can use them to create an Ossuary and there’s not any laws around it.”
Justin isn’t sure if their goal is attainable in Smyrna, but perhaps in surrounding states.
“In my dream, I would have some big gothic-y church like you would see in Philadelphia or something but I would take any church that worked with me,” Justin says. “And I would like to put these bones inside of the church and do the same thing where I could continue to perform weddings and funerals and allow it open door instead of by appointment.”
For now, Justin and Sonya say they will continue to spread their message and educate those who will listen.
“We do travel, every once in a while we’ll take a skull, because its easy to travel with a skull, and we have taken a skeleton out before too for a day trip,” Justin says. “And we go out and have lunch with them just to raise awareness in public.”
Negative reactions are few and far between, and the couple are confident in their mission and their values.
“We give life back to death,” Justin says. “We try to remember that these specimens were real people at one time.These were brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, just as we are today, they once were. And what they are now, one day we will be.”
