A former worker of the Harvard Medical Faculty morgue is a member of an alleged human stays trafficking ring the feds have arrested.
“Some crimes defy understanding,” stated U.S. Lawyer for the District of Center District of Pennsylvania Gerard M. Karam, whose workplace is dealing with the case. “The theft and trafficking of human stays strikes on the very essence of what makes us human.”
On Tuesday, Cedric Lodge, 55, who labored within the college’s morgue as a part of the Anatomical Reward Program, his spouse, Denise Lodge, 63, each of Goffstown, N.H.; in addition to Katrina MacLean, 44, of Salem; Joshua Taylor, 46, of West Garden, Penn., and Mathew Lampi, 52, of East Bethel, Minn., have been indicted by a federal grand jury on conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen items expenses. This adopted expenses towards Jeremy Pauley, 41, of Bloomsburg, Penn., and Candace Chapman Scott, of Little Rock, Ark.
The alleged ring operated from someday in 2018 and till March 7, 2023, in line with the grand jury indictment, would promote human stays stolen from the Harvard Medical Faculty morgue and an Arkansas mortuary. Cedric Lodge labored within the HMS morgue as a part of the Anatomical Reward Program till he was terminated on Could 6. The U.S. Lawyer’s workplace stated Harvard helped within the investigation.
Cedric Lodge is accused of stealing organs and different components of human our bodies — described within the indictment as “dissected parts of donated cadavers, together with, for instance, heads, brains, pores and skin, bones, and different human stays” — that had been donated to the college for medical analysis and training and have been thereafter slated to be cremated in a Roslindale crematorium.
As an alternative, Cedric Lodge allegedly would take the stays dwelling in Goffstown the place he and his spouse Denis Lodge would promote the stays to different folks.
These embrace Katrina MacLean, who owns “Kat’s Creepy Creations,” a Peabody store that advertises itself on its Instagram web page as “Creations that shock the thoughts & shake the soul. Creepy dolls, Oddities, Bone Artwork. Curator of @freaksantiquesuniques darkish artwork & oddity market.” The indictment alleges that in October 2020, she agreed to buy two “dissected faces” for $600.
She then allegedly enlisted the leather-based tanning providers of Pennsylvanian Jeremy Pauley — allegedly transport human pores and skin to him to be became leather-based. She then allegedly requested Cedric Lodge for extra human pores and skin to ship to “the dude I despatched the chest piece to tan.”
Pauley was indicted on expenses of abuse of a corpse, receiving stolen property and different expenses final August. Pauley sports activities in depth physique modifications in a photograph launched alongside together with his expenses, which incorporates half his face tattooed, together with his eyeball, large-diameter gauge earrings and what seems to be subdermal steel spike horns by the highest of his scalp. His web site describes him as ” the lead preservation specialist of retired medical specimens and curator to historic stays and artifacts” for his museum, “Memento Mori,” and his self-named “Pauley Institute of Preservation.”
Harvard spokesman Dennis Nealon stated that whereas the feds have referred to Cedric Lodge as a “supervisor,” he in truth labored underneath the morgue’s director and didn’t handle every other staff.
Harvard deans George Daley, the dean of the School of Drugs, and Edward Hundert, the dean for Medical Schooling, issued a joint assertion calling the act “an abhorrent betrayal.”
“We’re appalled to be taught that one thing so disturbing might occur on our campus — a group devoted to therapeutic and serving others. The reported incidents are a betrayal of HMS and, most significantly, every of the people who altruistically selected to will their our bodies to HMS by the Anatomical Reward Program to advance medical training and analysis,” they wrote within the assertion.
The deans, who have been themselves college students at Harvard Medical Faculty within the 80s and 90s, wrote that “an vital and significant a part of how all first-year medical and dental college students be taught human anatomy is thru the dissection and examination of donor cadavers.” The anatomical information gained “transforms college students from pre-meds to physician-healers; it’s an expertise that modifications your coronary heart and soul, endlessly.”
They stated they “are so very sorry for the ache this information will trigger for our anatomical donors’ households and family members, and HMS pledges to interact with them throughout this deeply distressing time. Harvard counselors can be found for these affected 24/7 on the quantity 1-888-268-1129. The U.S. Lawyer’s workplace maintains a Sufferer and Witness Unit reachable on the e-mail tackle usapam-victim.data@usdoj.gov or by calling 717-614-4249.
