Fetal remains found at properties of suburban Chicago abortion doctor can’t be identified

Thousands of fetal remains were found earlier this year at the Will County home of Ulrich Klopfer after the former Indiana abortion clinic doctor died. | WNDU-TV via Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana authorities say they can’t identify thousands of fetal remains found earlier this year after the death of an abortion doctor who lived in suburban Chicago.

A preliminary report released Tuesday by Indiana’s attorney general blamed shoddy record-keeping and the degraded condition of the more than 2,400 sets of fetal remains found in the garage and in a car belonging to Ulrich Klopfer, who died on Sept. 3 at age 79.

Relatives of Klopfer found 2,246 sets of fetal remains in Klopfer’s garage in Will County following his death. Authorities later found another 165 sets of fetal remains inside a car at a Chicago-area business where Klopfer had kept several cars.

Each fetus was chemically preserved and individually sealed in a clear-plastic pouch.

According to the report from Attorney General Curtis Hill’s office, “based on the poor condition of the fetal remains and unreliable nature of the accompanying records, it is not possible to make an independent verification of the identities of the individual fetal remains.”

The remains were initially determined to be from abortions Klopfer had performed from 2000 to 2002 at his clinics in Fort Wayne, Gary and South Bend. But the report states investigators now believe the remains came from abortions he performed at those clinics between 2000 and 2003.

The Fort Wayne clinic closed in 2014; the Gary and South Bend clinics closed the next year.

Dr. Ulrich Klopfer’s former abortion clinic in Gary, Ind. is now shuttered and surrounded by weeds.

Klopfer’s medical license was suspended in 2016 by Indiana regulators who cited shoddy record-keeping and substandard patient monitoring.

Hill at one point called Klopfer one of the most “notorious abortionists in the history of Indiana.”

Hill’s office is working with its Illinois counterpart to investigate the remains. That investigation has also uncovered thousands of abandoned patient medical records at Klopfer’s former Indiana clinics and other properties.

Hill’s office said it expects to release a final report on the fetal remains in the coming months.

The fetal remains were returned to Indiana and according to the new report, they will eventually be “interred in a respectful and dignified manner in accordance with state law.” The patient records will be maintained and safeguarded “until such a time as they can be disposed of properly.”

Klopfer previously had worked in downtown Chicago, at a facility that figured prominently in the Chicago Sun-Times/Better Government Association 1978 investigation “The Abortion Profiteers.”

Contributing: Stefano Esposito

Will County authorities searched the home of Ulrich Klopfer after his death. They found thousands of fetal remains. Ulrich had operated abortion clinics in three Indiana cities.