Last year, when an Arkansas woman gave birth to a stillborn baby in February, she asked a Little Rock funeral home to cremate the remains of her child, whom she had named Lux. His body was sent over to a local mortuary to fulfill his mother’s wishes, and a few days later, a pack of ashes was given to his mom.
But they were not Lux’s remains. Those had been shipped to Pennsylvania and then to an address in Minnesota in exchange for five human skulls — one transaction within a complex scheme to sell stolen body parts across the country, prosecutors allege.
According to a federal indictment, a wide array of body parts, including brains, faces, skin and hearts, as well as two stillborn corpses, were stolen by employees at an Arkansas mortuary and a Harvard Medical School morgue. The remains — which in many cases had been donated for research and educational purposes — were then allegedly bought and sold by a network of individuals across the U.S. who connected over social media.
So far, at least seven people have been charged in connection with the alleged scheme. On Wednesday, a grand jury in Pennsylvania indicted Cedric Lodge, Denise Lodge, Katrina Maclean, Joshua Taylor and Mathew Lampi on charges of conspiracy and transporting stolen goods. A sixth defendant, Jeremy Pauley, who was charged last year, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and transporting stolen goods in an agreement signed by prosecutors on Tuesday. In April, a grand jury in Arkansas charged a seventh defendant, Candace Chapman Scott, with 12 criminal counts in connection with the scheme. She has pleaded not guilty.
Attorneys for Pauley and Scott didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment from The Washington Post. An attorney has not yet been appointed for Taylor, who has filed for a public defender. It’s unclear whether the other four defendants have retained counsel. Efforts to reach them Wednesday were unsuccessful.
As morgue manager at Harvard Medical School, Cedric Lodge had access to bodies that were donated to the institution as part of the Anatomical Gift Program, which aims to help medical students learn about human anatomy. From 2018 to 2022, prosecutors allege, he stole dissected portions of the remains and transported them to his home in New Hampshire, from where he and his wife, Denise Lodge, would ship brains, skin, organs and bones to buyers.
According to the indictment, defendant Taylor made 39 PayPal transactions, totaling over $37,000, as payment to Denise Lodge for parts stolen by her husband — including a $1,000 payment for a head and a $200 payment accompanied “with a memo that read ‘braiiiiiins,’” the court document states.
George Daley, dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard University, and Edward Hundert, the dean for medical education at Harvard Medical School, said in a statement Wednesday that they were “appalled” by “an abhorrent betrayal” from a former employee.
“We owe it to ourselves, our community, our profession, and our patients and their loved ones to ensure that HMS is worthy of the donors who have entrusted their bodies to us,” they said, adding that the school appointed a panel of experts to improve the donor program’s security.
Cedric Lodge is also accused of letting prospective customers come into the morgue to pick out the body parts they wanted to purchase. Prosecutors say one of those buyers was Maclean, owner of a Massachusetts store called Kat’s Creepy Creations — purveyor of “creations that shock the mind & shake the soul,” as the business’s Instagram account puts it.
Prosecutors say Maclean resold some of the items she purchased from Lodge to buyers across the country, including defendant Pauley, an artist in Pennsylvania.
In 2021, she allegedly shipped Pauley some skin in hopes of tanning it to create leather. Instead of paying in cash, she asked Cedric Lodge for human skin to send “the dude I sent a chest piece to tan,” according to the indictment. Maclean later contacted Pauley to confirm the shipment arrived because she “wanted to make sure it got to you and I don’t expect agents at my door,” the indictment stated.
Pauley often bought and sold body parts via social media — many of them, prosecutors say, sourced from the Arkansas mortuary where baby Lux’s remains were stolen.
Defendant Scott was an employee at a mortuary where remains from funeral homes and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock were sent to be cremated, according to prosecutors. In October 2021, she allegedly contacted Pauley on Facebook with a proposition.
“I follow your work and page and LOVE it,” Scott allegedly wrote. “ … Just out of curiosity, would you know anyone in the market for a fully intact, embalmed brain?”
The conversation would eventually go on to include photos of brains and hearts, instructions on how to package the parts and a payment agreement, prosecutors allege.
“Would $1,200 shipped sound reasonable for all 3 pieces including skull caps?” Scott allegedly wrote. The next day, Pauley paid her that amount, court documents state.
Scott would allegedly go on to provide Pauley with at least 20 boxes filled with body parts — including kidneys, brains and lungs — for approximately $11,000. Prosecutors say many of the parts ended up in the homes of buyers Taylor and Lampi.
But in June of last year, authorities got a tip that Pauley was advertising his body-part sales on social media — setting in motion an investigation that would eventually lead them to seven suspects across five states.
“Some crimes defy understanding,” U.S. Attorney Gerard M. Karam said in a news release. “ … 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.”
Human remains have for centuries attracted anthropologists, collectors, artists and others seeking curios, but “the rise of the internet and social media has moved it out of the purview of the rich or Colonial-era collectors and open to anyone with the money or interest,” said Damien Huffer, a human remains trafficking expert with ongoing research at Carleton University in Canada and the University of Queensland in Australia.
Known as the “red market,” the trade of human remains spans continents and centuries, Huffer said. Many remains stem from antique collections, including some with murky origins involving colonization and exploitation. But others are sourced illicitly and without people’s consent.
Laws governing the trading of human remains vary between countries and states, he added.
“It’s only when cases like this one get media attention, and the supplier and the middleman are identified, that you can actually have thorough investigations,” Huffer said. “And it’s cases like this that have the chance to maybe tighten up some of these laws and allow some of these unregulated markets to become a bit more regulated.”
But they were not Lux’s remains. Those had been shipped to Pennsylvania and then to an address in Minnesota in exchange for five human skulls — one transaction within a complex scheme to sell stolen body parts across the country, prosecutors allege.
According to a federal indictment, a wide array of body parts, including brains, faces, skin and hearts, as well as two stillborn corpses, were stolen by employees at an Arkansas mortuary and a Harvard Medical School morgue. The remains — which in many cases had been donated for research and educational purposes — were then allegedly bought and sold by a network of individuals across the U.S. who connected over social media.
So far, at least seven people have been charged in connection with the alleged scheme. On Wednesday, a grand jury in Pennsylvania indicted Cedric Lodge, Denise Lodge, Katrina Maclean, Joshua Taylor and Mathew Lampi on charges of conspiracy and transporting stolen goods. A sixth defendant, Jeremy Pauley, who was charged last year, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and transporting stolen goods in an agreement signed by prosecutors on Tuesday. In April, a grand jury in Arkansas charged a seventh defendant, Candace Chapman Scott, with 12 criminal counts in connection with the scheme. She has pleaded not guilty.
Attorneys for Pauley and Scott didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment from The Washington Post. An attorney has not yet been appointed for Taylor, who has filed for a public defender. It’s unclear whether the other four defendants have retained counsel. Efforts to reach them Wednesday were unsuccessful.
As morgue manager at Harvard Medical School, Cedric Lodge had access to bodies that were donated to the institution as part of the Anatomical Gift Program, which aims to help medical students learn about human anatomy. From 2018 to 2022, prosecutors allege, he stole dissected portions of the remains and transported them to his home in New Hampshire, from where he and his wife, Denise Lodge, would ship brains, skin, organs and bones to buyers.
According to the indictment, defendant Taylor made 39 PayPal transactions, totaling over $37,000, as payment to Denise Lodge for parts stolen by her husband — including a $1,000 payment for a head and a $200 payment accompanied “with a memo that read ‘braiiiiiins,’” the court document states.
George Daley, dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard University, and Edward Hundert, the dean for medical education at Harvard Medical School, said in a statement Wednesday that they were “appalled” by “an abhorrent betrayal” from a former employee.
“We owe it to ourselves, our community, our profession, and our patients and their loved ones to ensure that HMS is worthy of the donors who have entrusted their bodies to us,” they said, adding that the school appointed a panel of experts to improve the donor program’s security.
Cedric Lodge is also accused of letting prospective customers come into the morgue to pick out the body parts they wanted to purchase. Prosecutors say one of those buyers was Maclean, owner of a Massachusetts store called Kat’s Creepy Creations — purveyor of “creations that shock the mind & shake the soul,” as the business’s Instagram account puts it.
Prosecutors say Maclean resold some of the items she purchased from Lodge to buyers across the country, including defendant Pauley, an artist in Pennsylvania.
In 2021, she allegedly shipped Pauley some skin in hopes of tanning it to create leather. Instead of paying in cash, she asked Cedric Lodge for human skin to send “the dude I sent a chest piece to tan,” according to the indictment. Maclean later contacted Pauley to confirm the shipment arrived because she “wanted to make sure it got to you and I don’t expect agents at my door,” the indictment stated.
Pauley often bought and sold body parts via social media — many of them, prosecutors say, sourced from the Arkansas mortuary where baby Lux’s remains were stolen.
Defendant Scott was an employee at a mortuary where remains from funeral homes and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock were sent to be cremated, according to prosecutors. In October 2021, she allegedly contacted Pauley on Facebook with a proposition.
“I follow your work and page and LOVE it,” Scott allegedly wrote. “ … Just out of curiosity, would you know anyone in the market for a fully intact, embalmed brain?”
The conversation would eventually go on to include photos of brains and hearts, instructions on how to package the parts and a payment agreement, prosecutors allege.
“Would $1,200 shipped sound reasonable for all 3 pieces including skull caps?” Scott allegedly wrote. The next day, Pauley paid her that amount, court documents state.
Scott would allegedly go on to provide Pauley with at least 20 boxes filled with body parts — including kidneys, brains and lungs — for approximately $11,000. Prosecutors say many of the parts ended up in the homes of buyers Taylor and Lampi.
But in June of last year, authorities got a tip that Pauley was advertising his body-part sales on social media — setting in motion an investigation that would eventually lead them to seven suspects across five states.
“Some crimes defy understanding,” U.S. Attorney Gerard M. Karam said in a news release. “ … 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.”
Human remains have for centuries attracted anthropologists, collectors, artists and others seeking curios, but “the rise of the internet and social media has moved it out of the purview of the rich or Colonial-era collectors and open to anyone with the money or interest,” said Damien Huffer, a human remains trafficking expert with ongoing research at Carleton University in Canada and the University of Queensland in Australia.
Known as the “red market,” the trade of human remains spans continents and centuries, Huffer said. Many remains stem from antique collections, including some with murky origins involving colonization and exploitation. But others are sourced illicitly and without people’s consent.
Laws governing the trading of human remains vary between countries and states, he added.
“It’s only when cases like this one get media attention, and the supplier and the middleman are identified, that you can actually have thorough investigations,” Huffer said. “And it’s cases like this that have the chance to maybe tighten up some of these laws and allow some of these unregulated markets to become a bit more regulated.”
