Harvard Clinical School morgue manager, some others charged with trafficking body pieces

BOSTON (WWLP) – The supervisor of Harvard Health care School’s morgue, his wife, and several other people have been indicted for allegedly trafficking stolen human remains.

Cedric Lodge, 55, stole organs and other areas of cadavers donated for health-related study and training prior to their scheduled cremations from the morgue concerning 2018 and 2022, federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania have alleged. The physique sections ended up taken without the need of the school’s know-how or authorization, authorities explained, including that the school has cooperated with the investigation.

Bodies donated to Harvard Clinical University are employed for education and learning, instructing or investigate reasons. At the time they are no longer essential, the cadavers are generally cremated and the ashes are returned to the donor’s spouse and children or buried in a cemetery.

Lodge would sometimes just take stolen stays — which included heads, brains, pores and skin and bones — to his Goffstown, New Hampshire property exactly where he and his wife, 63-year-outdated Denise Lodge, would then market the stays to prospective buyers in other states, prosecutors said. Some continues to be have been despatched by the mail, though other prospective buyers were being allegedly allowed to visit the morgue to find continues to be for order.

3 other people have also been billed by federal prosecutors: 44-year-previous Katrina Maclean of Salem, Massachusetts 46-calendar year-previous Joshua Taylor of West Garden, Pennsylvania and 52-calendar year-aged Mathew Lampi of East Bethel, Minnesota.

All 5 have been billed with conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen items. In accordance to prosecutors, the defendants had been element of a nationwide community of people today who purchased and marketed remains stolen from the school and an Arkansas mortuary.

The Lodges allegedly bought continues to be to Maclean, Taylor, and other people in arrangements designed via phone phone calls and social media web sites. Maclean and Taylor were also authorized to enter the morgue and look at cadavers to choose what to purchase.

Taylor would on situation transportation stolen stays again to Pennsylvania, prosecutors say. The Lodges also allegedly transported stolen continues to be to Taylor and many others out of point out. Maclean and Taylor would then resell the stolen continues to be for income, which includes to 41-year-previous Jeremy Pauley of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.

Pauley has been accused of purchasing stolen human continues to be from Candace Chapman Scott who allegedly stole remains from her employer, a Tiny Rock, Arkansas mortuary and crematorium. Scott stole areas of cadavers as properly as the corpses of two stillborn infants, federal authorities say.

The continues to be Pauley procured ended up marketed to other people today, including Matthew Lampi, according to officers. In the course of an prolonged period of time of time, Lampi and Pauly exchanged more than $100,000 in on the internet payments.

Pauley and Scott have both of those pleaded not guilty, authorities stated.

Denise and Cedric Lodge equally created their original court appearances Wednesday in federal courtroom in Harmony, New Hampshire, and have been every single unveiled on personal recognizance bail. They declined remark as they left the courthouse.

In a information posted on the school’s web site entitled “An abhorrent betrayal,” deans George Daley and Edward Hundert named the make any difference “morally reprehensible.” They mentioned Lodge was fired May possibly 6.

“Some crimes defy knowledge,” said United States Legal professional Gerard M. Karam. “The theft and trafficking of human continues to be strikes at the really essence of what tends to make us human. It is specially egregious that so quite a few of the victims right here volunteered to enable their stays to be utilized to educate medical specialists and progress the pursuits of science and therapeutic. For them and their families to be taken edge of in the identify of profit is appalling.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.