Harvard morgue manager faces charges for illegally selling body parts

According to US prosecutors, the manager of the morgue at Harvard Medical School in America has been accused of unlawfully taking body parts from the facility and selling them.

Cedric Lodge, aged 55, has been charged with trafficking stolen human remains, as stated by the US attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

The attorney, Gerard Karam, expressed his astonishment, saying, “Some crimes are beyond comprehension.”

He further added, “What makes this case particularly egregious is the fact that many of the victims willingly donated their remains for medical education and scientific progress in the interest of healing.”

Lodge, along with his wife Denise Lodge, aged 63, and five other alleged co-conspirators, faces charges related to their involvement in a nationwide network that traded in purchased and sold human remains.

Prosecutors claim that between 2018 and 2022, Cedric Lodge “stole organs and other body parts from cadavers donated for medical research and education, which were supposed to be cremated.” The remains were taken from the Harvard site in Boston to Lodge’s residence in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where he and his wife sold them to two of the other accused individuals, Katrina Maclean and Joshua Taylor.

Lodge apparently allowed Maclean and Taylor access to the morgue, enabling them to choose the body parts they wanted to purchase, according to the attorney’s office.

Maclean, aged 44, from Salem, Massachusetts, and Taylor, aged 46, from West Lawn, Pennsylvania, then profited by reselling the obtained remains. The indictment also alleges that Maclean shipped human skin to Taylor, who used it to create leather through a tanning process, as reported by the Boston Globe.

Cedric Lodge served as the manager of the morgue for Harvard’s anatomical gifts program. Harvard University terminated his employment on May 6, as stated in an official statement.

“We are deeply disturbed to learn about such a distressing incident occurring on our campus,” expressed George Daley, the dean of Harvard University’s medicine faculty, and Edward Hundert, the dean of medical education, in a joint statement.

One of the co-accused individuals is accused of stealing remains from a morgue in Arkansas, where she was employed. Among the stolen remains were the bodies of two stillborn infants who were meant to be cremated and returned to their families.

Two additional other individuals facing charges were involved in buying and selling body parts, conducting transactions exceeding $100,000 through online payments.