Dem Bones Dem Bones Dem Dry Bones. Stolen. Masterfully.

Alastair Cooke's bones have been stolen,

days after he died last year at the age of 95, according to reports in New York. Cooke's bones were removed by a surgeon and then sold for around $7,000 (£4,000) to two companies that provide tissue for transplant operations, said The Daily News. Paperwork describing the bones, which were cancerous and too old for use in transplants, was reportedly altered to say they came from an 85-year-old man who died of a heart attack.

Masterpiece theater, n'est pas?

Cooke, who presented his Letter from America on BBC Radio for 58 years, died aged 95 at his home in Manhattan last March. He died of lung cancer, which had spread to his bones. Weeks later, his family fulfilled his dying wish by sprinkling his ashes in Central Park, defying a local bylaw by surreptitiously throwing them from Starbucks cups.

But last week, prosecutors from the Brooklyn District Attorney's office, which is leading a year-long investigation into the illegal sale of body parts and bones from New York funeral homes, called Cooke's family to say that his corpse had been mutilated and sold.

[thanks Art and Stuart Rennie]