TW: After posting complaint, Chicago man finds three severed heads on desk

Dale Wheatley, a transportation coordinator at the Anatomical Gift Association in Illinois that distributes human body parts for medical research, revealed to People Magazine that after he filed a complaint about the condition of donor bodies, he found three severed heads sitting on his desk.

In the last five years of working at this place, Wheatley had never found body parts placed so casually at his desk. He said that they are safely transported to storage areas, and then shipped of to medical students where students dissect and study them. Afterwards, they are cremated, and the ashes are sent to family members.

“At first I was confused,” Wheatley tells PEOPLE. “My boss walked by, and I asked him why the heads were at my desk. He said they need to get back with their bodies so we can send them to cremation.”

Wheatley said he asked his boss about why the heads were lying on his desk. His boss said he did not know.

Wheatley had earlier complained that donated bodies were not kept in proper conditions or stored, leading to decomposition and mold, rendering them unsuitable for studying. Wheatley’s lawyer David Fish said that rats had chewed through the bags, which made the bodies unusable.

“The body goes to waste if it’s not properly cared for,” Fish told PEOPLE.

The president of the company, William O’Connor, denied Wheatley’s complaint that bodies were being mishandled.