A young mother died in mysterious circumstances while on holiday in Turkey – with a UK autopsy revealing that doctors had removed her heart without her family’s knowledge.
Beth Martin, 28, from Portsmouth, was rushed to hospital after she became ‘delirious’ just one day into a dream trip away with her husband Luke and two children, aged eight and five.
She was quickly placed into critical care but tragically passed away around a day after she was first admitted on April 28.
Beth’s family claim they were kept in the dark about the seriousness of her condition and subsequent death – with Luke even being accused of ‘poisoning’ his wife by the Turkish authorities.
And in a further sickening development, a UK autopsy later revealed Beth’s heart had been removed after she passed away in Turkey, according to a GoFundMe page set up to raise money for her family.
It is also understood the hospital where Beth was treated is now being investigated for potential negligence amid the raft of claims levelled against them.
Beth’s family have been left desperately searching for answers about how and why she died – with Luke saying he has suffered the ‘deepest level of trauma’.
He said having to tell his young children they will never see their mother again ‘broke him’ and he described the ordeal as the ‘worst week of his life’.
‘Two weeks ago me, my wife and two kids set out for a family holiday to Turkey. Only three of us made it back,’ Luke wrote on social media on May 11.
‘I lost my wife, my children lost their mum, we lost the biggest piece of the puzzle that was our family.
‘It has been the worst and most traumatic week of my entire life, and to top it off. I had to break the news to my babies that their mum isn’t coming home, it broke me.’
The Martin family flew out to Turkey on Sunday, April 27, but it is understood Beth started to feel unwell soon after they touched down in the airport.
Luke called an ambulance the following day and she was taken to a ‘destitute’ hospital where she was quickly moved into intensive care.
According to the GoFundMe page, Luke was ‘banned’ from seeing his wife and was not regularly updated on her condition while she was being cared for.
It is understood that doctors did raise some concerns about Beth’s heart but she died the day after she was admitted to the hospital.
To compound the nightmare, Luke was reportedly accused of poisoning his wife and interrogated by police. He was subsequently cleared and no further action was taken.
In further claims levelled against Turkish authorities, the family also say they were made to carry Beth’s body in a bag through the hospital.
They then said they were told they would have to wait more than two weeks to repatriate her body so Luke ‘paid thousands’ for Beth to be flown home on the same flight as him.
Luke added in his social media post: ‘I stayed in Turkey another two days to ensure she was brought back, and booked myself on the same flight home.
‘Knowing my wife was still on my flight but I couldn’t be next to her broke me even more.
‘The harsh reality of coming home and the world’s still spinning as if nothing has happened is horrible. Realisation of becoming mum and dad, packing her clothes away for the last time, and the deafening silence when the kids are asleep.
‘If anyone can take anything away from this…hold your loved ones a little longer, don’t sleep on an argument, take photos, take videos, tell them you love them more. You will never know when any of these may be your last.
‘I love you babe, forever by my side. This life and the next.’
The GoFundMe page set up to raise money for the Martin family has already hit a total of more than £100,000.
Writing on the page, organiser Robert Hammond said: ‘In the weeks since bringing Beth home the family is battered and bruised.
‘Everyone is a shell of themselves and no one knows how to even begin to recover from something so horrific.. yet still — it gets worse.
‘The UK autopsy began. And then the final blow: Beth’s heart was missing.
‘The Turkish hospital has removed it. No explanation. No consent. They have invaded her body and they have TAKEN her heart.’
He continued: ‘And this is why we are fighting back. Luke has spent thousands. He’s self-employed, meaning that if he’s not back to work in a matter of days, he won’t be able to support his family.
‘They are grieving, traumatised — and now trying to put the pieces of their family back together.
‘After everything the family have been through – Luke believes passionately that this is something that cannot be taken lying down.’
There is no suggestion at this time that Beth Martin’s heart has been illegally harvested.
However, the practice of illegal organ trading is alive well in Turkey, where hospitals have previously faced accusations of stealing organs and facilitating illegal transplants for wealthy people looking to jump the queue.
According to the World Health Organisation-affiliated Global Observatory on Donation and Transplantation, the country has one of the highest transplant rates in the world: 61.5 for every million inhabitants as of 2023, compared to a global average of 25.84.
To donate to the GoFundMe page for Beth’s family click here.
WHO has previously suggested one in 10 organ transplants across the globe are conducted illegally – with donors either coerced or having organs removed unwillingly.
Investigators and researchers have determined the trade thrives on the exploitation of poor and vulnerable people, such as victims of human trafficking and asylum seekers who have resorted to selling their organs to make money.
The underground nature of the trade makes it hard to predict exactly how many illegal transplants are carried out, or how much organs fetch on the black market.
An popular – but unsourced – figure suggests a human heart can fetch $1million on the black market.
A more solid estimate, from a 2017 report by think tank Global Financial Integrity, suggested hearts could fetch $130-290k (£96-216k), with lungs worth a similar amount.
In Turkey, the market remains rife despite the threat of years-long prison sentences to those convicted of harvesting or selling human tissue.
An organ-trading network operated by Jordanian and Palestinian nationals was busted in Istanbul by Turkish authorities in 2021.
Riyadh broadsheet Arab News reported that the transplant ring was operating from a hospital in the capital’s Beylikduzu area, using forged documents, with donors promised $15,000 and the hospital given a $15,000 cut.
The donors were usually not given their promised share.
And earlier this year, an investigation by German outlet DW heard from a Kenyan man, Amon Kipruto Mely, who sold his kidney for $6,000 (£4,500), of which he only ever received two thirds.
He donated his organ at the Mediheal Hospital in Eldoret, western Kenya, which has been accused of exploiting a Kenyan law allowing relatives to donate organs.
It was accused of gathering rich clients from Israel and Germany and bringing them to Kenya as long-lost relatives so they could get fast-tracked black-market transplants.
The firm accused of facilitating the transplants, MedLead, was founded by Robert Shpolanski, an Israeli citizen accused by Tel Aviv magistrates of carrying out a ‘large number’ of illegal transplants in Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Sri Lanka — and Turkey.
MedLead maintains that it has no involvement in locating donors and that it adheres transparently and to the letter of the law. However, Kenyan authorities have shut down transplants at the Mediheal hospital pending further investigation.