Harvard Morgue Manager Charged with Selling Human Body Parts

Boston – Seven people, including the morgue manager at Harvard Medical School (HMS) have been formally arrested and charged with stealing and selling human bodies from morgues at the Ivy League school and the University of Arkansas, prosecutors said.

The arrest involves a black market network of cadaver sales, including the bodies of two newborns at Harvard Medical School's Anatomy Gift Program and an Arkansas morgue and crematorium, United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam said in a statement.

Cedric Lodge (55) allegedly stole cadavers from the university morgue, where he worked, and sold the body parts online with the help of his wife, Denise (63), to his associates, Katrina Maclean (44), Joshua Taylor (46), and Matthew Lampi (52).

The defendants face charges of conspiracy and unlawful transportation of stolen goods, which carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Officials said that one of Lampi's clients, Jeremy Pauley, bought and sold body parts to him, with the two exchanging more than US$100,000.

Pauley eventually led detectives to Candace Chapman Scott, who was accused of stealing a body for cremation in Little Rock and selling it to Pauley in Pennsylvania.

As with the Lodge operation, many of the bodies Scott is accused of selling belonged to those who donated them for scientific research purposes at the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences.

"Some crimes are hard to understand," Karam said of the underground market the defendants are accused of conducting. "The theft and trafficking of human remains strikes at the core of what makes us human," he continued.

"It is appalling that so many victims here voluntarily allowed their remains to be used to educate medical professionals and advance the interests of science and healing," he added.

"For them and their families to be used in the name of profit is appalling."

Among the body parts sold included two dried faces that MacLean paid Lodge $600 for, and in 2020, Taylor allegedly sent Denise $200 with a memo that said brains.

Prosecutors also claimed that Lodge allowed buyers to enter the Boston morgue to select the body parts they wanted, and the rogue manager then stole the bodies and sent them through the mail.

Lodge was fired on May 6, and Harvard described his actions as a "disgusting betrayal".

"We were shocked to learn that something so disturbing could happen on our campus, a community dedicated to healing and serving others," said George Daley, dean of the school's medical school in a statement.