Private Firm Billed Kin for Body Willed to UCI

A family that has questioned the way UC Irvine’s Willed Body Program handled its father’s cremated remains has produced a credit card bill that suggests an outside company received funds that should have gone to the university.

Osa Coghill’s Visa bill shows that Replica Notes, which ran an unauthorized anatomy class at UCI, charged her $800, apparently to transport her husband’s body from a mortuary near Palm Springs to the university and to return the ashes to the family--money that university officials said should have gone to UCI.

Under the policies of the Willed Body Program, families typically pay UCI $600 if they wish to receive their loved one’s ashes back. In this case, the Coghills paid nothing to the university, UCI officials said. The owner of the company that did receive payment, Replica Notes, has ties to the now-fired head of the Willed Body Program, who is under investigation by the district attorney’s office and the university.

The billing by Replica adds a new layer to the evolving scandal in the Willed Body Program, which handles cadavers donated for education and research. The program is already the focus of a district attorney’s criminal investigation into allegations that then-director Christopher S. Brown profited from the sale of body parts and cadavers and that he steered work to friends.

“It would appear that if you have that documentation, a Visa bill, that would appear to be misappropriation of university funds, funds that should have gone to the University of California,” said Kathy Hooven, UCI police chief.

UCI Associate Executive Vice Chancellor William Parker said that “there is no legitimate reason for a willed body expense being paid to Replica Notes.”

“Normally we pay for the transport,” Parker said. “A body is willed to UCI. UCI arranges for the transport and we would contract with the company for transport. They would bill us.”

The Coghill family’s donation appears to deviate from the university’s guidelines in two ways. First, there is the $800 charge to Replica Notes. Second, the family received the ashes back much sooner than is standard, although legitimate reasons exist for returning ashes early in a small number of cases, university officials have said.

“My father wanted to help science,” son Skip Coghill said. “This poor guy wanted to do something right in his last effort, and we got scammed.”

As the Coghills recall it, when the family patriarch died May 12 of a heart attack at age 78, Skip Coghill made the call to UCI’s Willed Body Program. He left a message either with a secretary or on an answering machine.

An hour later, he received a call from a man identifying himself as Jeffrey E. Frazier, who he said faxed him a 14-page agreement on Willed Body Program letterhead to complete. Frazier, the owner of Replica Notes, has not returned repeated calls seeking comment.

Skip Coghill’s records show he faxed the documents back to Frazier at 2:53 p.m. May 13.

He said that Frazier represented himself as being from UCI. Coghill said he now he realizes he didn’t speak to anyone from the Willed Body Program until nearly three months after his father died. That was when Brown, the former program director, called him to arrange for the return of the ashes.

Frazier and Brown briefly co-owned Harry’s Mortuary Transport, a company with a contract to make body deliveries for the Willed Body Program. Brown has said he divested himself of his stake in the firm when he realized it may have posed a conflict of interest.

Stephen Warren Solomon, one of Brown’s attorneys, said he was not aware of Brown being involved in Replica Notes, and he denied that his client had done anything wrong. “It may well be that others were doing something they shouldn’t have,” he said. “My client didn’t make any inappropriate money he wasn’t supposed to make.”

Replica ran an anatomy class on UCI property and used at least two of the university’s donated cadavers without authorization, university officials have said. Between 30 and 120 students took the class, advertised at $175 a student, plus fees. The university has no record of receiving payment for use of campus property or the cadavers.

Osa Coghill said it wasn’t until she received her Visa bill a month after her husband’s death that she learned of the Replica fee. She said her husband gambled on the Internet, and she assumed Replica was an offshore gaming company.

“I don’t think we knew what Replica Notes was at that point,” Skip Coghill said. “I’m stumped. I was dealing with Jeffrey Frazier, and he wasn’t with Willed Body.”

The Coghills said they don’t remember giving Replica their credit card number.

Looking back, the Coghills believe their first contact with an actual representative of UCI’s cadaver program was Aug. 4, when Brown called to tell Skip Coghill that he was returning the ashes. Brown was placed on leave Aug. 9 and fired Sept. 24.

Skip Coghill said the ashes were sent to him Sept. 9 from a private shipping company in Newport Beach. They arrived at his home in Wheaton, Ill., on Sept. 15.

He said he was surprised to get his father’s ashes so soon. He had been told he wouldn’t get them for at least two years, the usual time needed for bodies to be prepared and then used for research and teaching.

The university has no evidence the Coghill ashes were misused. The vast majority of cadavers sit for at least a year after they are embalmed until the chemicals permeate them. In some cases, however, they are cremated earlier.

But for the family, the quick return of the ashes has raised questions about how the cadaver was used and if the ashes are those of Joseph Coghill. Skip Coghill, who has contacted a lawyer, said he was going to send the remains to a specialist who would videotape the opening of the package in which they arrived. State law requires an identifying “disk, tab or label” be placed with the remains before they are released from the crematory.

Using that tab, the Coghills may be able to tell if the ashes are those of the elder Coghill.