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PHILADELPHIA, May 17, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – As investigators in haz-mat suits raided his flea-infested home in West Philadelphia searching for the bodies of babies he killed, abortionist Kermit Gosnell sat at the piano in the living room and calmly played Chopin.

This may sound like a scene out of a horror movie. But it is just one more of the many surreal, but apparently true, details that have emerged in the past few days, ever since Judge Jeffrey Minehart lifted the gag order that had prevented jurors and investigators from speaking publicly about the Gosnell case.

Philadelphia Police Crimes Scene Unit Detective John Taggart is one of those who has spoken out, describing what he saw at Gosnell’s clinic, as well as his various properties and homes.

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According to Taggart, while Gosnell spent considerable amounts of money to purchase high-end appliances for his homes, he lived in “squalor.”

“He would leave plates of food on the floor. There was stuff everywhere in the bedroom. You couldn’t see the bed,” Taggart told NBC10.

“As soon as [investigators] went down into the basement, they were covered in fleas,” he continued. “[Gosnell] actually gave us a bottle of flea repellent and said, ‘See what a nice guy I am? I told you there were fleas in the basement.’ He said ‘I didn’t have to tell ya’s.’” 

Speaking of the clinic, Taggart said that when he went in, ‘The smells were just unbearable. You could tell there was death somewhere.”

The detective said that he discovered that employees at the clinic had been “shoving” body parts down a garbage disposal, “To the point where they plunged it one day and an arm popped out on Lancaster Avenue.” 

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He also revealed that investigators have spent considerable effort since 2010 looking for the bodies of babies that are missing, including diving into the bay at one of Gosnell’s water-side properties.

“There’s a lot of babies that are still unaccounted for that we don’t know where they’re at,” he said. “I believe they are either buried out there or I don’t know where they are. We’ve looked, we’ve looked for three years.” 

While raiding the clinic Taggart also stumbled upon some of the jars that contained the severed feet of babies, a sight that Taggart said, “I’ll remember that for a long time.” 

While giving his testimony during the trial Taggart had described how, when investigators raided his clinic, Gosnell met them at the door carrying his lunch and some fresh clams. He asked the investigators if he could put his lunch into the fridge, after which he emerged with two clams. These he proceeded to crack open, dropping the meat into one of his aquariums for his pet turtles. 

The Philadelphia Inquirer has described Gosnell as “something of a naturalist,” who filled his clinic with plants and multiple large aquariums. 

During Gosnell’s incarceration, Detective Taggart took it upon himself to take care of the collection of fish and turtles, before finding a new home for the animals at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. 

While Gosnell’s crimes have received intense scrutiny over the past two months, the man himself remains largely an enigma. 

Those present in the courtroom during the trial have said that Gosnell consistently appeared calm and collected, and would spend his time in the courtroom “smirking,” or writing messages to his attorney. To date he has shown no signs of remorse. 

Even after he was convicted, Gosnell was photographed leaving the courtroom with a slight smile on his face. 

While some had hoped that Gosnell might take the stand during the trial, to provide some insight into his actions, those hopes were dashed when his attorney abruptly closed his defense without calling any witnesses. 

Gosnell reportedly made $1.8 million a year running his Philadelphia clinic. 

In addition to the income from his abortion business, he allegedly also made money by selling illegal prescriptions to drug addicts. 

According to the grand jury report, a search of Gosnell’s Philadelphia home in 2010 uncovered $240,000 in cash and a gun hidden in a filing cabinet in his 12-year-old daughter’s bedroom.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Gosnell and his wife owned 17 properties, a motorboat, a Dodge Durango, a Ford F-150 pickup truck and a Ford Expedition, at the time of his arrest.