Officials: Shipment of 18 human heads was destined for crematorium? Something smells rotten and it's not in Denmark

A shipment of 18 human heads stopped by customs officials at O'Hare International Airport was sent here from Rome to be cremated after being used in medical research.
Customs held up the shipment in late December because accompanying paperwork was incomplete, according to Mary Paleologos, a spokeswoman for the Cook County medical examiner's office. Other officials said it was not clear where the shipment was to be delivered.
After news of the shipment broke today, a company in Schiller Park came forward with what appears to be proper paperwork to accept the shipment, she said.
The heads had been embalmed and were packaged in three blue coolers shipped from Rome on a Lufthansa Airlines flight about a week before Christmas, said Tony Brucci, chief of investigations for the Cook County medical examiner's office

Questions
How did Rome get these human heads?
Are there zero crematoriums in Europe?
What are these heads really going to be used for?

August 3, 1999, KIEV; Dmitry Dyomin was sentenced to death for murder; his accomplices, Valentin Chelyshev and Alexei Andreyev sentenced to 13 and 8 yrs. in jail.Overview: The supreme court sentenced to death a man convicted of killing a 15-year-old girl whose tongue he then boiled and ate. He belonged to a satanic cult and with the help of two accomplices had severed the girl's head with a kitchen knife. Dyomin later lacquered the skull and kept it in his room. Skulls, books on black magic and upside-down crucifixes were found during a search of Dyomin's house. See AAP NEWSFEED, August 4, 1999

November 1997, India; Dharam Vir arrested for the ritual murder of his son.Overview: A father chopped off his son's head and offered it to the Hindu goddess of destruction, Kali, in a belief that a human sacrifice would earn him divine favors. He ordered his son to lie on the ground and then beheaded him. The police said he murdered his son because he was driven by his own religious beliefs. See, "Man beheads son in Ritual Murder in India", Agence France Presse, November 14, 1997

December 1995, Jimmie Lee Penick v. State of Indiana, 659 N.E.2d 484, Conviction for murder and enhanced sentence affirmedOverview: Four practitioners of Satanism conspired and planned to murder a prospective member of their "Satanic Church." They were concerned that the victim, William Ault, knew about a prior murder. They took him to what he thought was an initiation..."Ault was asked to lay down on a door, which was being used as an altar. Keith Lawrence read an invocation to Satan...Goodwin and the Lawrences also made cuts on Ault's chest and abdomen in the form of an inverted cross, as well as other cuts...Penick's own words describe how the victims chest and abdomen were cut open, how Goodwin tried to cut out victim's heart before he died, and how the victim remained conscious throughout this and responded to questions from the defendant." Aggravators were that Penick dismembered the victims head and hands and Penick admitted he removed the head to give the skull to a friend. Penick's defense was that he acted under the influence of his strong beliefs in Satanism but that he had converted to Christianity while in prison

Oct 89, People of the State of Illinois, v. Andrew Kokoraleis, No. 65229, Supreme Court of Illinois, 547 N.E.2d 202. Conviction for murder and death penalty affirmed.Overview: Four members of a satanic cult, including Robin Gecht, were perpetrators in a series of gruesome murders, rituals, and acts of cannibalism over a number of years.
"Thomas Kokoraleis told investigators that the room had contained an altar, made from a board covered with red cloth, where cult members cut up animal parts, and sometimes human parts, for sacrifice. See, "GRUESOME CLUES LED TO AN ALTAR IN AN ATTIC", Chicago Tribune, October 12, 1987

From Satanism and Ritual Abuse Archive