A Las Vegas museum has issued a firm rebuttal to renewed claims by a Texas mother who insists that one of its plastinated human figures is, in fact, the preserved body of her deceased son. The allegation—both deeply personal and profoundly unsettling—has resurfaced online years after it was first raised, reopening a painful and unresolved chapter involving grief, doubt, and mistrust of institutional authority.
At the center of the controversy is Kim Erick, whose son, Chris Todd Erick, died in 2012 at the age of 23. Authorities ruled his death a suicide, but Erick has spent more than a decade questioning that conclusion. From the beginning, she has said the circumstances surrounding her son’s death felt incomplete, marked by inconsistencies and unanswered questions that left her unable to find closure.
Over time, those doubts expanded beyond the cause of death itself to encompass what she believes may have happened afterward.
Erick’s suspicions intensified after a visit to the Real Bodies exhibition in Las Vegas, a traveling anatomical display that features plastinated human cadavers arranged to demonstrate musculature, organ systems, and skeletal structure. The exhibition—similar in concept to other internationally touring body shows—has drawn millions of visitors worldwide and is marketed as an educational exploration of the human form.
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