US prosecutors have revealed that the mortuary manager at Harvard Medical School in America stole dead body parts from his job without authorization and then sold them.
According to a press release from the US attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Cedric Lodge, 55, has been charged with trafficking in stolen human remains.
“Some crimes defy understanding,” said the attorney, Gerard Karam.
“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 added.
Lodge has been charged with participating in a “nationwide network” of bought and sold human remains along with his wife Denise Lodge, 63, and five other alleged co-conspirators.
During the period of 2018 to 2022, according to the prosecution, Cedric Lodge “stole organs and other parts of cadavers donated for medical research and education before their scheduled cremations.”
He is charged with removing the bones from the Harvard site in Boston and transporting them to his house in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where he and his wife allegedly sold the remains to Katrina Maclean and Joshua Taylor, two of the other accused.
Lodge occasionally “allowed Maclean and Taylor to enter the morgue… and examine cadavers to choose what to purchase,” according to the attorney’s office.
The remains were allegedly marketed for profit by Maclean, 44, of Salem, Massachusetts, and Taylor, 46, of West Lawn, Pennsylvania.
According to the indictment, Maclean sent Taylor human skin so that he could “tan the skin to create leather,” according to the Boston Globe.
Lodge oversaw the anatomical gifts program at Harvard’s mortuary. The school released a statement announcing his dismissal from his position on May 6.
In a joint statement, Edward Hundert, dean of medical education at Harvard University, and George Daley, dean of the school of medicine at Harvard University, expressed their shock that such a disturbing incident could occur on their campus.
Another co-defendant is accused of stealing human remains from the mortuary where she worked in Arkansas, including the bodies of two stillborn babies whose bodies were supposed to be cremated and sent to their families.
Two further suspects are accused of purchasing and selling remains from one another while exchanging more than $100,000 (or R1.8 million) in online payments.
