A Texas man has been charged with abuse of a corpse after he threw a bucket containing suspected human remains over a fence at the FBI’s Dallas field office and posted a video of it on YouTube.
Michael Chadwick Fry, 41, was arrested Thursday, charged with two counts of abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence, the Bartonville Police Department said in a news release.
The investigation began on March 16 when a Bartonville Police Officer responded to a call from Fry’s mother who said he asked her for money to pay for a U-Haul. When asked why, he said he “had a body that needed to be moved,” the probable cause affidavit said.
Fry then became “irate” and left the home. Shortly after, the officer received information from Fry’s sister that he had “filmed himself on YouTube” at the Dallas FBI field office, the affidavit said.
The video showed Fry throwing a large, closed white bucket over the fence into the secure parking lot of the Dallas FBI field office building, according to the affidavit.
Fry claimed in the video he was trying to compel the FBI to intervene “in what he describes as wrongdoing by Denton County officials from a past arrest,” the affidavit said. It’s not clear what that alleged wrongdoing was.
An FBI special agent said “the bucket contained numerous bones” that appeared to be human, per the affidavit. The bones are awaiting further forensic analysis.
Fry had also posted another video on YouTube that depicted what appeared to be a human skull at his Denton County home.
The mother told police that she found in her vehicle’s GPS history three searches for cemeteries — one in Arlington, Texas, and two in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She also said she found a shovel that was never at the residence before and her son had started to lock the shed in the back of the home, which he didn’t do prior, the affidavit said.
In the investigation by Bartonville police and FBI agents, Fry was found to have posted videos online depicting separate human remains and an urn of ashes.
Investigators later determined that Fry had stolen an urn containing human remains from a cemetery in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma — which was the subject of an Oklahoma City Police Department investigation from February, according to Bartonville police.
FBI agents also found evidence at a cemetery in Denton, Texas, “indicating that a coffin containing human remains had been removed from a mausoleum,” Bartonville police said.
Officials did not disclose who the remains belonged to nor why Fry might have targeted them.
The case remains active and ongoing, and next of kin have been notified, police said.
Fry remains in custody Sunday on a $30,000 surety bond, according to booking records. It’s not immediately clear if he’s retained a lawyer.
Fry had made headlines in the past for ramming a truck into a FOX 4 building in downtown Dallas in 2018. In that case, police determined Fry was upset about a 2012 police shooting in Denton County that killed his friend. He had apologized to the local news station during a court hearing, FOX 4 reported.
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