Harvard Medical College morgue supervisor, Cedric Lodge, has been accused of stealing human stays donated to the establishment to show a revenue.
Lodge, 55, and 5 others, together with his spouse Denise Lodge, 63, had been indicted by a federal grand jury on conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen items expenses on Wednesday for allegedly collaborating in a “nationwide community” to purchase and promote physique elements stolen from cadavers.
Because the morgue supervisor for the Anatomical Presents Program on the prestigious medical faculty, Lodge allegedly stole organs and different stays – together with heads, brains, pores and skin, and bones – from our bodies donated for scientific analysis earlier than they had been cremated from 2018 by means of 2022, in accordance with the indictment.
Lodge would then transport the stays to his house in Goffstown, New Hampshire, the place he and his spouse would promote the elements to resellers Katrina Maclean, 44, Joshua Taylor, 46, and different consumers on-line – usually transporting and transport the stays throughout state traces. In some situations, Lodge allowed Maclean and Taylor into the morgue to “study cadavers to decide on what to buy.”
The indictment states that Taylor despatched 39 digital funds by way of PayPal to Denise Lodge for a complete of $37,355.56 between September 2018 and July 2021, with usually crude cost memos together with “head quantity 7” and “braiiiiiins.”
After buying the stays, Maclean and Taylor would resell the elements for a revenue. Maclean allegedly bought the elements in her retailer Kat’s Creepy Creations in Peabody, Massachusetts, and to frequent purchaser Jeremy Pauley, 41.
Pauley additionally bought stays from Candace Chapman Scott, who would steal physique elements from cadavers donated to the College of Arkansas for Medical Sciences whereas she labored at a Little Rock mortuary and crematorium.
Pauley would then resell the elements to others, together with Matthew Lampi, 52. Information point out that they might usually purchase and promote from one another, exchanging over $100,000 in on-line funds.
Picture credit score: Photograph by Steven Porter/The Boston Globe by way of Getty Pictures
Former Harvard Medical College morgue supervisor Cedric Lodge, 55, leaving the Warren B. Rudman United States Courthouse.
Denise Lodge, Maclean, Taylor, and Lampi had been additionally indicted by a federal grand jury on conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen items expenses on Wednesday. Pauley was charged by the use of prison info, whereas Scott was beforehand indicted in Arkansas.
Cedric and Denise Lodge and Maclean had been arrested by the FBI on Wednesday with out incident, in accordance with ABC Information, whereas Taylor entered a not responsible plea.
Cedric was terminated from Harvard Medical College on Could 6.
RELATED: How This Harvard Professor Is Utilizing AI to Heal Our Wounds
In an announcement, the college referred to as the ordeal “morally reprehensible,” and said that Lodge “acted with out the information or cooperation of anybody else at HMS or Harvard.” Lodge was the one one concerned within the crime that was affiliated with the Ivy League faculty. Moreover, Harvard plans to work with investigators to seek out which donors could have been impacted.
United States Lawyer Gerard M. Karam stated the college is “additionally a sufferer right here” within the indictment.
“Some crimes defy understanding,” he stated. “The theft and trafficking of human stays strikes on the very essence of what makes us human. It’s significantly egregious that so most of the victims right here volunteered to permit their stays for use to teach medical professionals and advance the pursuits of science and therapeutic. For them and their households to be taken benefit of within the identify of revenue is appalling. With these expenses, we’re in search of to safe some measure of justice for all these victims.”