When you think about the possible surprises that a house can hide before its renovation, the most common problem is that humidity problems, old pipes or rotten beams come to mind. But a Florida contractor could not imagine that what was going to be found in the basement of a ranch in a wooded place would be bottles of about four liters in capacity, stored in preservative liquid, tongues and other human tissues.
The contractor immediately called the police phone, but the case was soon resolved. Last Tuesday, authorities in the area ruled out that the macabre discovery was due to some kind of serial murder. The jars, which were there since the early 1970s, were owned by an emeritus professor at the University of Florida, Ronald A. Baughman. He had bought them for his research projects. After divorcing, he forgot languages and no one missed his existence until the arrival of the contractor, according to The Washington Post.
Baughman needed a place that enjoyed stable temperature all the time, to ensure tissue preservation, and found his own basement adequate, Tampa Bay Times reports. It has been now, 50 years later, when the existence of the peculiar collection has been publicly disseminated, which has come to light after deciding his ex-wife to undertake reforms of the house he shared with Baughman while they were married.
The man worked at the University of Florida School of Dentistry from 1971 until his retirement in 2002, and specialized in forensic teeth analysis. But before that specialization and he was hired in Florida, he had been interested in the investigation of thyroid disorders, and hence acquired samples of both languages and thyroid.
As the researcher has told the WCJB chain, he stored the samples in a ranch he had bought a few kilometers north of his workplace, and never used them. They were abandoned to their fate all these years. A spokesman for the University of Florida has pointed to the television station that ignores the legislation regarding the conservation of human remains from five decades ago, but that today would not be allowed. "There are state and federal laws, in addition to very strict university regulations that prohibit that," said university representative Steve Orlando.
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