Fetal Remains Found Last Year in Garage Buried in South Bend

The more than 2,400 fetal remains that were found in the garage of a doctor who performed abortions in Indiana were buried Wednesday. More than 100 people gathered for the service in South Bend.

The crowd at Southlawn Cemetery listened to the state Attorney General, sang hymns and prayed over the burial site. 

The 2,411 medically preserved fetal remains were found in Dr. Ulrich Klopfer’s garage and in the trunk of a car he owned in Illinois. Klopfer died in September. He performed abortions in South Bend, Gary and Fort Wayne until his license was suspended in 2016. 

Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill says the investigation into the remains, and who else may have known about them, is ongoing.

“We have been continuing to review records, some records along with these remains as well as other records that we have in our possession that might shed some light," Hill says. "So that part of the investigation will continue on once we get past the burial today.”

Hill says the remains were buried in South Bend because it was impossible to tell for sure which remains came from which city. He says they decided to keep them together.

“The problem with using all of those locations is that we could not, as I’ve indicated, we could not come up with a real way of identifying which of the remains belonged where,” Hill says.

The remains were moved to Indiana in October. Hill said it has been determined that they were from abortions performed between 2000 and 2003, at the time they were moved the AG's office said they had thought they were from 2000 to 2002.