Auctioned leg to be returned to amputee

A man whose amputated, embalmed leg was sold at an auction will get the limb back despite objections from the buyer, who wanted to include it in a macabre, money-making Halloween display, police said Thursday.

The dispute over the leg John Wood lost in an airplane crash three years ago was resolved when police decided the buyer, Shannon Whisnant, had given up ownership by initially calling authorities and asking them to take it away.

“The simple fact is that he said he didn’t want it,” said Maiden Police Department Capt. Tracy Ledford.

Wood, 42, kept the embalmed leg because he wanted it to be cremated with him when he dies. He stored it in a small barbecue smoker in a Maiden storage unit but failed to keep up the unit’s rent, police said.

The storage company auctioned the smoker Sept. 25, and Whisnant was the buyer.

When he found the leg, he called police and said he “wanted to get rid of it,” Ledford said.

But later, “he wanted to show this thing at Halloween and charge money to see it,” he said.