The wife of a former morgue manager at Harvard Medical School has pleaded guilty to shipping human body parts stolen from the Ivy League school’s mortuary to buyers across the country.
Dennis Lodge, 64, pleaded guilty Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania to a charge of interstate transportation of stolen property, court records show.
Federal prosecutors say the “egregious” and irregular scheme involved an employee of an Arkansas mortuary who sold body parts on Facebook for nearly $11,000 and another who bought human skulls. He said a Massachusetts store owner who created a “killer clown”-style doll and later shared it on Instagram was also involved.
They announced charges last year against Ms. Lodge, her husband Cedric Lodge, and five others, alleging that Ms. Lodge, 64, negotiated the online sale of human remains between 2018 and 2020.
Items sold included 20 hands, two legs, nine spines, part of a skull, five dissected human faces, and two dissected heads. . PennLive.com report.
Ms. Lodge’s attorney, Hope LeFever, said in a February interview with WBUR that her client’s husband was the mastermind, adding that Ms. Lodge was “just going along with it,” and that no money was lost.
“[It’s] “It’s more of a moral and ethical dilemma than a criminal case,” Lefebvre said.
Bodies donated to Harvard Medical School are used for educational, teaching, and research purposes before being cremated and returned to the donor’s family after use, but mortuary managers say they may instead be put on the black market. Seeing a business opportunity, he sold the body parts without the family’s knowledge.
Cedric Lodge was fired on May 6, and Harvard University described his actions as an “abhorrent betrayal.”
This horrific crime revealed a growing demand for human remains in the United States.
Organ and tissue donation is “heavily regulated” by the federal government, but that oversight does not extend to the whole body.
Only four states closely monitor whole body donations and sales: New York, Virginia, Oklahoma, and Florida. experts told The Post in June.
Families of the deceased are typically approached by hospices and funeral homes that work with unregulated mortuary agencies in exchange for free cremation.
Body brokers, on the other hand, can sell bodies for around $5,000, although prices can exceed $10,000.
National Funeral Directors Association officials say body parts can be resold multiple times at banks other than tissue transplant banks, which can target poor and elderly customers. It is said that there are many.
Capitation heads sell for as much as $3,000 in a market primarily driven by medical schools, research facilities, independent collectors, and cosmetic surgery companies.
Depending on condition, a spine sells for $1,200 and a set of hands fetches around $1,000.
Full bodies sell for up to $11,000.
