Inside the Alleged Criminal Network Selling Human Body Parts

June 18, 2023

It sounds like something out of a horror movie: A morgue worker steals body parts from dead people and starts an underground business selling them. Skin, bones, and other human remains are placed in large buckets and distributed around the country, to the kind of people who find pleasure in owning human remains. However, it isn't the plot of a movie. Instead, it is a new scandal at Harvard Medical School. Here is what you need to know about the alleged criminal network selling body parts from the Ivy League school.

1

A Harvard Morgue Manager Was Selling Body Parts

Harvard Medical School Morgue manager Cedric Lodge has been arrested and charged with selling body parts. Authorities allege that he was the ringleader of a "stolen human remains" criminal network.

2

He Conspired with People in Other States

According to a new federal complaint filed in the Middle District of Pennsylvania state, Lodge, his wife Denise and two others, Katrina MacLean and Joshua Taylor conspired with Jeremy Pauley, to sell human remains for a profit.

3

There Was a Network

Pauley was charged in August 2022 with multiple counts with authorities alleging he purchased and sold corpses. The documents maintain that he bought the parts from MacLean, who had been selling them with Taylor since 2018. The duo was allegedly purchasing them from the Lodges.

4

He Would Invite People Into the Morgue to Examine Bodies

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, on multiple occasions, Lodge invited Maclean and Taylor into the morgue to examine cadavers. They would choose the ones they wanted to buy and then Lodge would ship the remains to Taylor, in addition to other people who lived outside of Pennsylvania.

5

The School Doesn't Think Other Employees Were Involved

"Investigators believe that Lodge acted without the knowledge or cooperation of anyone else at HMS or Harvard," the Dean of Harvard Medical School said in a statement, confirming that Lodge had been fired.

6

Some of the Body Parts Were Stored in a Salem Store

Once MacLean and Taylor obtained the body parts they would sell them to buyers across the country and also stored them in her Salem, Massachusetts store, Kat's Creepy Creations, her store in Salem, Massachusetts. In June or July 2021 MacLean sent Pauly human skin so he could tan it to create leather, according to documents. MacLean reportedly contacted Lodge, asking him to help her locate skin for "the dude I sent the chest piece to tan."

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