Police Think 30 Were Slain for Medical School

Police said Monday they have found the remains of 30 bodies at a Colombian university and that they are thought to be the victims of a gang that murdered poor people and sold the bodies to a medical school.

The macabre discovery was made after a badly wounded garbage scavenger escaped Sunday and told police he and several other such scavengers had been attacked by security guards who lured them to the campus of the Free University in the steamy Caribbean port city of Barranquilla.

The police searched the university Sunday and found the bodies of seven men and three women in the medical school as well as 20 skulls, 15 lungs, 20 brains and 15 limbs, a police statement said.

Local radio said the killers sold the bodies to the medical school for about $200 each so that students could carry out practical studies. Police and judges are still investigating.

“We are in the presence of a repugnant trade in death,” the Bogota daily El Tiempo quoted investigators as saying.

Colombian Television showed pictures of the naked bodies, including one headless torso. Police said the victims had been shot or bludgeoned to death.

Police also found a man who was still alive after being shot and beaten.

“The security guards apparently committed the murders and later sold the bodies,” a police spokesman said, adding that five security guards have been arrested. News reports said the victims were killed between four days and two months ago.