The 2,200 fetuses discovered last month in the garage of a deceased downstate abortion doctor have now been transferred to Indiana, where Dr. Ulrich Klopfer practiced, Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill told reporters Thursday.
“This is the beginning of the investigation,” Hill said.
After Klopfer died Sept. 3, some of his relatives discovered the fetuses — each labeled and placed in a plastic bag with a preservative called Formalin — in dozens of cardboard boxes stacked in the doctor’s garage in Crete.
Those boxes were mixed in among “hundreds and hundreds” of other boxes, packed floor-to-ceiling in the garage, Will County Sheriff Mike Kelley told reporters last month.
Will County investigators have said the abortions occurred from 2000 to 2002 and, based on the labels, were all performed in Indiana, where Klopfer had clinics — in Gary, Fort Wayne and South Bend.
Investigators in Indiana are trying to figure out, among other things, if Klopfer had help transporting the fetus remains from his clinics to his home.
After the discovery, some lawmakers in Indiana lawmakers demanded an investigation to determine if the preserved fetal remains had been illegally transported across state lines.
Indiana authorities on Sept. 19 searched two of the shuttered abortion clinics once operated by Klopfer. Officials in South Bend said nothing was found. Fort Wayne officials at the time would not say what if anything was found inside that former clinic.
The home in Will County where Dr. Ulrich Klopfer, who died Sept. 3, kept thousands of preserved fetuses.
Stefano Esposito/Sun-Times
