University of Texas: Missing brains were destroyed

DALLAS —- Officials at the University of Texas at Austin said in a written statement Monday that 40-to-60 of the 100 brain specimens reported missing were destroyed in 2002 by UT environmental health and safety officials following "protocols concerning biological waste."

They went on to say, "This was done in coordination with faculty members who determined that the specimens had been in poor condition when the university received them in the 1980s and were not suitable for research or teaching."

The investigation into the missing brains started just a few days ago, after Texas photographer Adam Voorhes and British journalist Alex Hannaford uncovered the missing specimen while researching a book, titled "Malformed." It is a photo essay documenting mostly-damaged organs donated from a Texas Mental Hospital.

One of the organs believed to be in the collection was the brain of Charles Joseph Whitman, the former Marine who went on a shooting spree, killing 16 people and wounding dozens of other on the UT-Austin campus in 1966.

School officials say dozens of human brains reported missing from a University of Texas research lab in Austin were actually destroyed about 12 years ago because they were in poor condition. News 8's Sebastian Robertson has more. Sebastian Robertson / WFAA

An autopsy done shortly after his death revealed a brain tumor.

"We realized that he wasn't among them - his brain had disappeared - that was when [the professor] turned around to me and said, 'Oh, maybe his brain was one of the ones that went missing,'" Hannaford said via Skype from his home in the United Kingdom.

Not only did Hannaford realize half the collection was missing, but that it had been missing since the late 80s. They were rumored to have gone back to the mental hospital they came from.

"I phoned the hospital and they said, 'Why on earth would we take them back? We hadn't got any room for them,'" Hannford recalled.

His confusion launched an internal investigation by University of Texas staff this week. Wednesday, they announced as many as 60 were destroyed.

"The university will also investigate how the decision was made to dispose of some of these specimens and how all brain specimens have been handled since the university received its collection from the Austin State Hospital in the 1980s," the written statement said.

As for Whitman, the university said they have no evidence that any of the specimens came from the UT shooter.

"I think that it is either sitting in a university collection somewhere, or some of them are sitting in someone's living room," Hannaford said.