David Bennett (57), the American who underwent the revolutionary operation and was implanted genetically modified pig heart, is now charged with stabbing a young boy in the past, he said Washington Post.

Leslie Schumacher Downey when she read the name of the man who received the pig's heart, she was shocked.

- I received a message from my daughter, with a link from the story of the man whose heart was transplanted from a pig. And I answered, it is a great advancement for science, and immediately after that it called me.

"Mom, read the man's name!" Her daughter told Leslie.

"I froze. The man who has been called a medical pioneer is the same man who was sentenced in 1988 for stabbing my son Edward seven times with a knife. My son was paralyzed by the injuries. He spent the next 19 years in a wheelchair, and in 2005 suffered a stroke. "He died in 2007, before celebrating his 41st birthday," said Leslie.

After his release from prison, Bennett continued to live a peaceful and comfortable life, and Leslie and hers went through trauma for years.

Now he even got a new chance, with a new heart, but in our opinion, that chance should have been given to someone else, who deserved it - adds Leslie.

Her story has sparked much debate that raises the question of whether people convicted of violent crimes should have an advantage over a transplant over hundreds of others who desperately need an organ.

The Maryland Medical University, where the transplant took place, declined to say if they knew of Bennett's criminal past.

- The duty of the hospital is to provide care that saves the lives of patients who will come to the door, based on medical needs, and not on their past or life circumstances, said in a written statement from the university.

For the first time in the history of medicine: A man received a heart from a genetically modified pig