On Wednesday, United States prosecutors stated that the mortuary manager at America’s prestigious Harvard Medical School allegedly stole and sold dead body parts from his workplace without permission.
In a statement, the US Attorney’s office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania stated, “Cedric Lodge, 55, has been charged with trafficking in stolen human remains”.
“Some crimes defy understanding”, said Gerard Karam, the attorney.
“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”, he continued.
Lodge, his wife, Denise Lodge, 63, and five other alleged co-conspirators have been charged with participating in a nationwide network of bought and sold human remains.
According to prosecutors from 2018 to 2022, Cedric Lodge stole organs and other parts of cadavers donated for medical research and education before their scheduled cremations.
He is suspected of transporting the remains from the Harvard site in Boston to his home in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where he and his wife sold the remains to Katrina Maclean and Joshua Taylor, two of the other accused.
The attorney’s office went on to say, “Lodge allowed Maclean and Taylor to enter the morgue… and examine cadavers to choose what to purchase”.
Prosecutors allege that Maclean, 44, of Salem, Massachusetts, and Taylor, 46, of West Lawn, Pennsylvania, resold the remains for profit.
According to the indictment, Maclean delivered human skin to Taylor to have him tan the skin to create leather.
In a statement, the school stated, “Lodge was the morgue manager for Harvard’s anatomical gifts program. He was sacked from his position on May 6”.
“We are appalled to learn that something so disturbing could happen on our campus”, stated George Daley, the dean of Harvard University’s medicine faculty, and Edward Hundert, dean of medical education, in a joint statement.
Another co-accused allegedly stole remains from a mortuary where she worked in Arkansas, including the bodies of two stillborn babies who were scheduled to be cremated and returned to their families.
Two other people have been charged with allegedly buying and selling remains from each other, exchanging more than $100,000 in online payments.
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