Bumfights Creators Accused Of Stealing Children’s Body Parts And Mailing Them
The creators of the Bumfights website and video series are accused of stealing human remains in Thailand and attempting to mail them to the United States. The Times of San Diego reports that both Ryan Edward McPherson and Daniel Tanner, both of Las Vegas, Nevada, have been detained and questioned in Thailand regarding the gruesome incident. Unfortunately they were released before it was determined that they had in fact stolen remains from a hospital museum in Bangkok. Now they are reportedly on the run and may have fled to Cambodia.
The Las Vegas men are accused of stealing the head of a deceased infant, the foot of a deceased infant and a human heart along with tattooed skin pieces. The macabre collection was reportedly ceased by Thai officials, who intercepted the men’s attempt to ship the body parts back to the United States. The Bumfights creators reportedly tried to use the popular courier DHL to send the stolen goods back to the state of Nevada. Officials in Thailand have requesting Cambodia’s help locating the presumed smugglers, hoping that the country’s Interpol office will be willing to help them track down and apprehend McPherson and Tanner. The Bangkok Post confirms that Thai officials are seeking international assistance in locating the duo.
Both Ryan Edward McPherson and Daniel Jamon Tanner rose to fame — or rather notoriety — when they began paying homeless people, or “bums,” to beat and fight each other. The fights were filmed and then produced to video volumes, which were aptly named Bumfights. The video series has been banned in various parts of the world including Canada and the United Kingdom. Furthermore, the state of California pursued misdemeanor charges against the creators of the controversial series. Their dehumanizing treatment of homeless people became a cultural meme, and even today the hashtag #bumfight or any variation of it is used for a variety of purposes on Twitter.
Currently McPherson and Tanner are fugitives, and are running from charges of making false declarations as well as theft. While the duo avoid capture from Thai officials and Cambodian Interpol agents, the FBI all the way over in the United States is watching the case carefully with files open on the two suspects. A spokeswoman for the FBI named Bridget Pappas commented to the media that agents are looking to see if any American laws were broken while the two Bumfights creators were trying to mail body parts to Nevada. Since the items were seized before they could even leave Thailand it’s hard to determine with certainty if any American laws were in fact broken. Nonetheless, it would be interesting to see FBI agents figure out just why the body parts were being sent to Nevada in the first place.
[Photo credit: IBTimes]
