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Call it the house of horrors medical school.
The manager of the morgue at Harvard Medical School has been charged with stealing donated human remains and funneling them into a nation-wide scheme to sell misappropriated body parts.
Cedric Lodge, 55, of Goffstown, New Hampshire, is one of seven people charged in the broad scheme that prosecutors said involved taking human remains that had been donated for medical research and selling them as souvenirs and to be used for grizzly craft projects.
Among those charged include Lodge’s wife, Denise Lodge, and Katrina MacLean, the owner of a Massachusetts shop called Kat’s Creepy Creations, which specializes in creepy dolls, bone art and other macabre oddities, according to its Instagram page.
In one post in 2020, MacLean allegedly wrote: “If you’re in the market for human bones hit me up!”
“Some crimes defy understanding,” said Gerard Karam, the U.S. attorney for the middle district of Pennsylvania where the case was filed.“The theft and trafficking of human remains strikes at the very essence of what makes us human.”
“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,” Karam added. “For them and their families to be taken advantage of in the name of profit is appalling.”
In a statement, Harvard said it was devastated by the “abhorrent behavior” of Lodge who had worked for the university for nearly 30 years. They said he was immediately fired when the allegations came to light
“We are appalled to learn that something so disturbing could happen on our campus — a community dedicated to healing and serving others,” the school’s deans wrote. “We are so very sorry for the pain this news will cause for our anatomical donors’ families and loved ones, and HMS pledges to engage with them during this deeply distressing time.”
Prosecutors alleged that the scheme ran from 2018 until this year, when investigators shut it down. In March, the FBI raided MacLean’s doll shop, removing boxes and suitcases as evidence, according to media reports at the time.
Court documents laid out a busy black market for body parts and organs that were slated to be sent for cremation after they had been used for study at medical schools.
In 2020, MacLean allegedly paid the Lodges $600 for two desiccated faces she collected from the morgue at Harvard. That year, another defendant, Joshua Taylor, of West Lawn, Pennsylvania, sent Denise Lodge $200 “with a memo that read, ‘braiiiiiins,’” according to the complaint.
Another defendant, Candace Chapman Scott, of Little Rock, Arkansas, was charged in a separate, earlier indictment, with selling remains from a crematorium where she worked to some of the other defendants. Those remains included stillborn fetuses, intact brains and skulls, according to court papers.
Prosecutors allege that two of the defendants, Jeremey Pauley, 41, of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, and Matthew Lampi, 52, of East Bethel, Minnesota, sold over $100,000 worth of body parts to each other.
Messages left with attorneys appointed to represent the Lodges at their first court appearance in New Hampshire where they were arrested, were not immediately returned. A message left for Scott’s attorney was also not immediately returned.
It was not immediately clear if the other defendants had yet retained attorneys.
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