A former head of the Harvard University morgue, Cedric Lodge, was sentenced to eight years in prison for trafficking organs and human remains, while his wife received a one-year sentence for being involved in the same scheme. Both appeared Tuesday before a federal court in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and Lodge admitted to removing body parts before cremations. According to a statement released Thursday by the US Department of Justice, from 2018 until at least March 2020, Lodge participated in the sale and interstate transportation of human remains stolen from the morgue of the university center located in Boston, Massachusetts, “as if they were trinkets,” in the words of prosecutor Alisan Martin. Lodge, who was the morgue manager for 28 years, expressed remorse before the court on Tuesday. Even his defense attorney, Patrick Casey, called his actions “atrocious.”

Purchases for “Disturbing” Use

Among the trafficked remains were brains, skin, hands, faces, taxidermied heads, and other parts, sourced from cadavers donated after they had been used for research and teaching purposes, but before they could be disposed of, according to the anatomical donation agreement between the donor and the school.

In one instance, Cedric Lodge provided skin to a buyer so that it could be tanned and made into leather and bound into a book, a “deeply horrifying reality,” Assistant US Attorney Alisan Martin stated in a court filing. “In another case, Cedric and Denise Lodge sold a man's face, perhaps to keep it on a shelf, perhaps to use it for something even more disturbing,” Martin said.

Sales via the Postal Service

Lodge would take the remains without notifying the university or the donor's family and transport them to his home in New Hampshire. Then, he and his wife, Denise, would sell them and ship them to buyers in other states, or the buyers would pick them up directly and transport them themselves. The prosecution indicated that at least six other people, including an employee of an Arkansas crematorium, have pleaded guilty in the investigation into trafficking in body parts.“Trafficking stolen human remains through the US mail is a disturbing act that victimizes grieving families and creates a potentially dangerous situation for postal service employees and customers,” Christopher Nielsen, inspector in charge of the Philadelphia Division of the Postal Inspection Service, said in the statement. Harvard Medical School said yesterday that Lodge's actions were “abominable and inconsistent” with the values ????that the university, its anatomical donors, and loved their ones “expect and deserve.” “While the sentencing concludes the criminal case against him, the healing process for the pain he caused continues,” added the university, which fired Lodge in 2023 when the case came to light.