THE daughter of Alistair Cooke called for the world to focus on the sale of body parts yesterday after the undertaker who cremated the legendary Letter from America broadcaster pleaded guilty to a ghoulish scheme to harvest his corpse.

Susan Cooke Kittredge told The Times that the revelations about her father — whose arms and legs were stolen after his death for use in surgery — lifted the lid on an issue of global concern. “It’s a conversation we are going to have to have as human beings,” she said.

The undertaker, Timothy O’Brien, is one of seven funeral directors who have struck confidential plea deals with prosecutors pursuing the spreading body-snatching scandal, sources close to the case told The Times yesterday.

Mr O’Brien is the former owner of New York Mortuary Service, a cut-price funeral home in East Harlem that Cooke’s daughter picked from Yellow Pages to handle her father’s body when he died of lung cancer in 2004 at the age of 95.

“I did know that Mr O’Brien had pleaded guilty and was co-operating. I believe the truth will set you free. I have always believed the more we know about this, the better off we will be,” the Rev Cooke Kittredge, a Vermont pastor, said.

Medical records reveal that Cooke’s body was plundered at the funeral home for bone that was sold for use as surgical implants without his family’s consent. The documents list Cooke’s age as 85, making his body appear ten years younger than it was, and his cause of death not as cancer but as “cardiopulmonary arrest”.

Although he died just after midnight on March 30, 2004, the time of death was given falsely as 6.45am — apparently to suggest that the body was fresher than it was.

The broadcaster’s name was misspelt as “Alister”; his social security number was wrong; so was his doctor’s name. The consent form purporting to authorise the donation of body parts lists his daughter as a Susan Quint, of the Bronx, whereas his only daughter is Susan Cooke Kittredge, of Vermont.

It was initially thought that only Cooke’s legs were removed, but the medical records show that he was butchered for his arms, pelvis and other tissue.

The arms and legs were sent to Regeneration Technologies, of Alachua, Florida, which says Cooke’s bones were never transplanted to anyone.

In a letter to Cooke’s daughter, Brian K. Hutchison, the company’s chairman, said it performed many “quality control procedures, and in this case our procedures prevented distribution as they are designed to do”.

It is still not clear where Cooke’s pelvis and other body parts were sent, or whether they were ever used in surgery.

US authorities say that the body-snatching ring earned almost $5 million (£2.7 million) and stole skin, bones, heart valves and other tissue from 1,077 corpses for sale to hospitals for use in surgery.

Times Recommends

• Rio Tinto four held as China prepares case
• Diplomats must keep heads down and trousers up
• When in Rome should one make like Berlusconi?