‘Appalling’: Harvard medical school morgue body parts scheme detailed in grisly indictment

For years, a network extending beyond state lines is accused of allowing those with an extreme devotion to the macabre to buy, sell and trade human body parts — from brains, to skulls and to male genitalia.

That’s according to U.S. prosecutors, who on Wednesday announced that a total of seven people had been arrested and indicted on federal charges for their suspected participation in the apparently profitable black market for human remains.

The suspects communicated using social media and cell phones, where prosecutors say they conducted transactions of stolen remains that included bones, skulls, skin, dissected faces and heads, as well as internal organs like brains and lungs that they referred to in messages as “wets” or “wet specimens,” court records state. 

In sum, thousands of dollars and numerous types of human body parts — all from Harvard Medical School’s morgue and an Arkansas mortuary — were exchanged beginning sometime in 2018, according to the indictments.

Cedric Lodge, 55, who managed Harvard’s morgue, was arrested along with his 63-year-old wife Denise Lodge and four others after all were indicted this week in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. They are all charged with conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen goods, an offense carrying a 15-year maximum prison sentence if convicted.

Little Rock resident Candace Chapman Scott, who was indicted previously in federal court, was named in all the federal indictments announced this week.

“Some crimes defy understanding,” United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam said in a written statement. “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. For them and their families to be taken advantage of in the name of profit is appalling.”

Here are the most disturbing allegations contained in the federal indictments.

Previous:Harvard Medical School morgue human-remains trafficking scheme leads to arrests in 4 states

Harvard morgue manager hocked his wares from inside morgue itself

Cedric Lodge is accused of using his position at the morgue to allow perspective customers to shop among the cadavers — donated for medical research and education — and select the body parts they wished to purchase.

From the morgue, federal prosecutors say Lodge would make transactions of bones, skin, dissected heads and brains. Lodge, who was fired by Harvard on May 6, transported those stolen body parts to his residence in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where he and his wife Denise Lodge are accused of preparing them for sale, according to the indictment.