Cedric Lodge, ex-morgue manager at Harvard Medical School, admitted to stealing and selling human body parts from donated cadavers. He faces up to 10 years in prison.
A former morgue manager at Harvard Medical School has admitted to a truly disturbing crime — stealing and selling body parts from cadavers that were donated to the university’s medical program.
Federal authorities announced that Cedric Lodge, 57, pleaded guilty in federal court in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday. He’s now facing up to 10 years behind bars and could be fined as much as $250,000 (around £186,000).
Prosecutors say Lodge — who oversaw the morgue for Harvard’s Anatomical Gifts Program — took body parts like heads, brains, skin, and bones from cadavers between 2018 and March 2020. These bodies were supposed to be used strictly for medical research.
Reports from the Irish Star note that Lodge removed everything from organs and dissected heads to faces and hands, later selling them with his wife, Denise, to buyers across Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
In one especially grim detail revealed by the New York Times, Katrina MacLean of Salem, Massachusetts, paid $600 for dissected faces and even had human skin tanned into leather by Jeremy Pauley, another individual facing charges. MacLean and Pauley are just two of several others indicted in this morbid scheme.
Prosecutors believe Lodge would take the body parts back to his home before he and his wife sold them across state lines — including in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania — raking in tens of thousands of dollars in the process.
By May 2023, Lodge was fired from Harvard. The university was quick to condemn his actions, calling them “morally reprehensible” and an “abhorrent betrayal.” Harvard has made it clear that Lodge acted alone and no one else from the school was involved.
Others caught up in the investigation have also pleaded guilty, including Denise Lodge, who is still awaiting sentencing. Among the buyers was Joshua Taylor from West Lawn, Pennsylvania, who made 39 online payments totaling over $37,000 to Denise Lodge — often with disturbing notes like “head number 7” and “braiiiiiins.”
“This one’s hard to comprehend,” said U.S. Attorney Gerard M. Karam.
“The theft and trafficking of human remains strikes at the very essence of what makes us human.”
He added:
“It is particularly egregious that so many of the victims here volunteered to allow their remains to be used to educate medical professionals and advance the interests of science and healing.”
This chilling case is still unfolding, with more sentencing dates and investigations expected.
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