Harvard Selling Body Parts: Sentences, Lawsuits, and Federal Bill

Cedric Lodge, the former manager of the Harvard Medical School morgue, was sentenced in December 2025 to eight years in federal prison for selling body parts stolen from donated cadavers at Harvard, part of a trafficking ring that reached from Massachusetts to Arkansas, Kansas, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota. His wife and several buyers have also been convicted, and Harvard itself is now facing civil lawsuits from donor families after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court revived their claims in October 2025.

What Happened Inside the Harvard Morgue

Lodge managed Harvard Medical School’s Anatomical Gift Program, which receives bodies donated for teaching and research. Beginning in 2018 and continuing through at least early 2020, he stole organs, tissue, and other remains from cadavers before they were scheduled to be cremated. The stolen parts included brains, hearts, skin, hands, and faces.¹

Lodge found buyers through Facebook groups devoted to trade in human specimens. His wife, Denise Lodge, shipped the parts and processed payments through her PayPal account. Prosecutors estimated the couple earned between $40,000 and $95,000 from the sales. On at least one occasion, Lodge brought a buyer directly into the morgue and sold two dissected human faces for $600.²

The couple later said the sales were an attempt to cover medical costs, including Denise Lodge’s breast cancer treatment.²

The Buyers and the Wider Network

Harvard was one node in a larger operation. Seven people were indicted in June 2023 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.³

Katrina Maclean of Salem, Massachusetts, owner of a business called “Kat’s Creepy Creations,” bought stolen remains directly from Lodge, including the two faces and human skin she then sent to another buyer to be tanned into leather. She pleaded guilty in late 2025 to interstate transport of stolen goods and is awaiting sentencing.⁴
Joshua Taylor of Wernersville, Pennsylvania, sent 39 PayPal payments to Denise Lodge between 2018 and 2021, totaling roughly $37,000. Some memos read “head number 7” and “braiiiiiins.” He pleaded guilty in May 2025 and is awaiting sentencing.⁵⁶
Jeremy Pauley of Pennsylvania bought and resold remains from multiple sources, including Harvard, an Arkansas mortuary, and a Kansas hospital. He pleaded guilty in 2023 and was sentenced in December 2025 to six years in federal prison, three years of supervised release, and a $2,000 fine.⁷
Candace Chapman Scott, a mortuary employee in Arkansas working under a contract with the University of Arkansas, stole fetal remains and body parts between October 2021 and July 2022 and shipped dozens of boxes to Pauley. She was sentenced in January 2025 to 15 years in federal prison.⁷
Matthew Lampi of East Bethel, Minnesota, bought remains from Pauley, including the corpse of a stillborn baby stolen from a funeral home. He was sentenced in January 2025 to 15 months in prison, a $2,000 fine, and $1,700 in restitution to the baby’s mother.⁸
Angelo Pereyra, a pathology assistant at a Kansas hospital, stole organs, amputated parts, and fetal remains from his employer between 2018 and 2022 and sold them to a Pennsylvania buyer. He was sentenced in January 2025 to 18 months.⁹

Why the Charges Look the Way They Do

There is no federal law that specifically criminalizes the sale of human remains. Prosecutors instead charged the defendants with conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen goods, treating the donated cadavers as property stolen from the institutions entrusted with them.⁵ All cases were prosecuted in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania before Chief Judge Matthew W. Brann.³

State law is patchier still. Only eight states broadly prohibit the sale of human remains: Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. About 30 states have “abuse of corpse” statutes, and more than two dozen restrict sales only in narrow circumstances.¹⁰

Sentences Handed Down

Cedric Lodge pleaded guilty in May 2025 to one count of interstate transport of stolen goods, reversing an earlier not-guilty plea. On December 16, 2025, Judge Brann sentenced him to eight years in federal prison.² Denise Lodge, who pleaded guilty in February 2024, was sentenced to one year and one day. Joshua Taylor and Katrina Maclean each face up to 10 years and are awaiting sentencing.¹¹

The Lawsuits Against Harvard

Families of the donors whose remains were stolen filed roughly a dozen civil lawsuits against Harvard University, arguing the school failed to protect their loved ones’ bodies. Harvard’s lawyers argued the university was shielded under the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, a Massachusetts law that grants institutions immunity when they handle donated remains in “good faith.”¹²

A Suffolk Superior Court judge dismissed the suits in February 2024. The families appealed. On October 6, 2025, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court unanimously reversed. Justice Scott Kafker wrote that “instead of the dignified treatment and disposal of human remains required by the act, the donors’ remains were ghoulishly dismembered and sold for profit under the most horrifying of circumstances.”¹²

The court found Harvard’s “extraordinary failure to adequately supervise the morgue’s operations” was enough to allege a lack of good faith. It pointed specifically to missed warning signs, including Lodge’s vanity license plate reading “Grim Reaper.” Kafker wrote that “there were little to no controls in place to prevent this harm from occurring at Harvard.”¹³

The ruling allowed claims to move forward against Harvard and against Mark F. Cicchetti, Lodge’s direct supervisor, while dismissing claims against another program employee, Tracey Fay, because plaintiffs had not shown she had supervisory responsibility. The case returned to Suffolk Superior Court for discovery, meaning the families can now seek internal documents and depose Harvard administrators under oath.¹² Jeffrey N. Catalano, the attorney representing the families, said the ruling vindicates their right to “get to the bottom of how this happened, right under the nose of Harvard for so many years.”¹³

What Harvard Changed After the Scandal

Harvard fired Lodge in May 2023 and suspended its body donation program for five months.¹⁴⁵ Harvard Medical School spokesperson Laura DeCoste said the actions were “without the knowledge or permission of HMS” and were “inconsistent with the standards and values” of the institution.¹³

The school commissioned an independent review with experts from the National Association of Medical Examiners, Emory University School of Medicine, and the University of California Health system. The 24-page report, released in November 2023, found the Anatomical Gift Program lacked program-specific policies and that its standard operating procedure manual had not been updated since 2014. The panel recommended appointing a medical director, hiring a dedicated anatomy laboratory technician, creating a daily operational committee and an annual governing board, adopting consistent cadaver tracking, and conducting an ethical review of the program’s “legacy collection” of skeletons and bones, which may include Indigenous remains subject to federal repatriation laws. Dean for Medical Education Bernard S. Chang was named to chair the implementation task force.¹⁵

Harvard has since introduced enhanced security and donation tracking for the program.¹⁶ Federal officials have said positive identification of the specific remains trafficked in the scheme is likely not possible.¹⁷

A Federal Bill Aimed at the Wider Trade

The Harvard case unfolded against a largely unregulated industry. Body brokers, sometimes called non-transplant tissue banks, acquire donated cadavers, dissect them, and sell parts for research and education, and unlike the organ transplant system, they operate without national standards or a federal registry.¹⁸

In April 2025, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced the Consensual Donation and Research Integrity Act of 2025. The bill, introduced in the Senate by Thom Tillis and Chris Murphy and in the House by Gus Bilirakis and Lizzie Fletcher, would require any entity acquiring or transferring human remains for profit to register with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, keep complete chain-of-custody records, ensure proper labeling and packaging, and return remains to families after use. It would also authorize HHS to conduct inspections and to suspend or revoke registrations. As of introduction, the legislation was referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.¹⁹²⁰

1
NBC News. Harvard Morgue Manager Sold Body Parts for Baubles, Gets 8-Year Prison Term
2
WBUR. Harvard Medical School Morgue Manager Cedric Lodge Sentencing
3
WBUR. Cedric Lodge Massachusetts Harvard Morgue Cadavers Indictment
4
The Harvard Crimson. Maclean Plea Deal HMS Morgue
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NBC Boston. Harvard’s Morgue Scandal Is Part of a Much Larger Story in Trading Human Remains
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WGAL. Stolen Human Remains Harvard Medical School Guilty Plea Pennsylvania
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WBUR. Harvard Medical Morgue Jeremy Pauley Sentenced Human Remains
8
U.S. Department of Justice. Minnesota Man Sentenced 15 Months Trafficking Stolen Human Remains
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U.S. Department of Justice. Kansas Man Sentenced 18 Months Stealing Selling Human Remains
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The Conversation. Is It Legal to Sell Human Remains
11
The Harvard Crimson. HMS Morgue Manager Sentencing
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WBUR. Harvard Morgue SJC Decision Suit
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The Harvard Crimson. Morgue Theft Lawsuit Discovery
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CNN. Harvard Morgue Case Cedric Lodge
15
The Harvard Crimson. Medical School Report Releases
16
NBC Boston. Amid Stolen Body Scandal Harvard Releases Review of Body Donation Program
17
Rhode Island Current. Is Harvard Responsible for the Alleged Sale of Body Parts From Its Medical School Morgue
18
Reuters. USA Bodies Brokers
19
U.S. Congress. S.1270 – Consensual Donation and Research Integrity Act
20
U.S. House of Representatives – Rep. Bilirakis. Bilirakis and Fletcher Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Stop Brokering Body Parts