A Harvard Medical School morgue manager and his wife are among five people who have been charged with stealing and selling human body parts.
Cedric Lodge, 55, of Goffstown, New Hampshire, was fired on May 6.
He used to steal dissected portions of cadavers that were donated to the school in the scheme that stretched from 2018 to early 2023, said news agency Associated Press citing court documents.
The body parts were taken without the school’s knowledge or permission, authorities said, adding that the school has cooperated with the investigation.
Bodies donated to Harvard Medical School are used for education, teaching or research purposes. Once they are no longer needed, the cadavers are usually cremated and the ashes are returned to the donor’s family or buried in a cemetery.
In a message posted on the school’s website entitled “An abhorrent betrayal,” deans George Daley and Edward Hundert called the matter “morally reprehensible.”
The indictment charges the Lodges and three others — Katrina Maclean, 44, of Salem, Massachusetts; Joshua Taylor, 46, of West Lawn, Pennsylvania; and Mathew Lampi, 52, of East Bethel, Minnesota — with conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen goods.
HOW CEDRIC LODGE USED TO SELL BODY PARTS?
According to authorities, it has been revealed that Lodge, along with his wife Denise, lived together in their home where he occasionally kept the stolen body parts. Some of these remains were then sent to buyers through the mail, while others were picked up by buyers who visited the morgue directly.
Prosecutors have stated that the defendants were part of a larger network operating nationwide. This network involved the buying and selling of stolen remains obtained from both a medical school and a mortuary in Arkansas. The Lodges allegedly engaged in transactions with individuals such as Maclean, Taylor, and others, arranging these deals through phone calls and social media platforms.
Taylor sometimes transported stolen remains back to Pennsylvania while other times the Lodges would mail remains to him and others. Maclean and Taylor resold the stolen remains for profit.
Maclean owns Kat’s Creepy Creations, a store in Peabody, Massachusetts, where authorities say she sold and stored human remains.
ROLE OF OTHERS INVOLVED IN THE CRIME
According to the indictment, Maclean stands accused of engaging in a transaction where human skin was sold to an individual in Pennsylvania, who then used it to create leather. After shipping more human skin to the buyer, Maclean contacted him to confirm the delivery, expressing her concern about potential law enforcement involvement.
In another shocking revelation, Maclean allegedly agreed to purchase two dissected faces for the sum of $600 from Cedric Lodge in October 2020.
The indictment further implicates that Taylor allegedly transferred a total of 39 payments amounting to $37,355.56 over a span of three years. These payments were reportedly made to a PayPal account operated by Denise Lodge. Notably, one of the payments, totaling $1,000, was accompanied by the memo “head number 7,” while another payment of $200 listed “braiiiiiins” as the description.
It has been revealed that Jeremy Pauley, a 41-year-old resident of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, was allegedly involved in the purchasing of stolen human remains. Candace Chapman Scott, an individual from Little Rock, Arkansas, is accused of stealing these remains from a mortuary where she was employed.
These stolen body parts were originally intended for cremation, as they belonged to individuals who had generously donated their bodies for research and educational purposes at a local medical school in Arkansas.
Pauley allegedly sold many of the stolen remains to other people, including individuals, including Lampi. Pauley and Lampi bought and sold from each other over an extended period of time and exchanged more than $100,000 in online payments, authorities said.