A former morgue manager at Harvard Medical School has admitted in court to stealing and trafficking human remains, including brains, skin, hands and even faces, from donated cadavers meant for research and education.
Cedric Lodge, 57, pleaded guilty in a court in Pennsylvania to the interstate transport of stolen human remains, Acting US Attorney John Gurganus announced this week. From 2018 to early 2020, Lodge turned the halls of Harvard’s Anatomical Gift Program into a grotesque marketplace, stripping dignity from bodies entrusted to science.
Prosecutors said Lodge, once responsible for managing Harvard’s morgue, systematically took dissected portions of cadavers that had been donated for medical studies and sold them for thousands of dollars.
“Cedric Lodge’s criminal actions were morally reprehensible and a disgraceful betrayal of the individuals who altruistically chose to will their bodies to Harvard Medical School’s Anatomical Gift Program to advance medical education and research,” Dr George Q Daley, dean of Harvard Medical School, said in a statement.
Investigators discovered that Lodge, with his wife Denise, transported the remains from Harvard Medical School’s morgue in Boston to their home in New Hampshire, later shipping them to buyers across state lines or letting the buyers collect them directly. The sales, often conducted over social media and even the US Postal Service, included transactions with individuals in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and beyond.
Court documents reveal that Lodge’s actions were part of a wider network involving several defendants, many of whom have already pleaded guilty. In one chilling instance, prosecutors said a buyer paid $1,000 for a “head number 7” and another sent $200 for “braiiiiiins.” The Lodges received at least $37,000 from a single buyer.
Authorities said Lodge also let certain buyers, including Katrina Maclean of Kat’s Creepy Creations in Massachusetts, browse the morgue’s inventory to select body parts themselves. In 2020, Maclean allegedly paid $600 for two dissected faces. A defense lawyer for Maclean argued last month that human remains “are not, and have never been, deemed to constitute property or ‘goods, wares or merchandise.’” However, prosecutors have stood firm in their case.
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The breach of trust has left the Harvard community reeling. “We are appalled to learn that something so disturbing could happen on our campus — a community dedicated to healing and serving others,” George Daley and Edward Hundert, dean for Medical Education, had said in a joint statement when the scandal first emerged.
Lodge’s plea agreement spares him a conspiracy charge but carries up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
(With inputs from New York Times)
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