Cedric Lodge, 55, who worked at Harvard University’s medical school and managed morgue for the medical school's program for anatomical donations, has been charged in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Cedric Lodge is accused of stealing organs and other body parts including heads, brains, skin and bones from cadavers that were donated to the school's morgue for medical research and education ahead of scheduled cremations.
Lodge has been charged alongside his wife, 63-year-old Denise Lodge, and five other alleged co-conspirators with involvement in a "nationwide network" of bought and sold human remains. Federal prosecutors said that Lodge often transported those stolen body parts to his residence in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where he and his wife Denise Lodge are accused of selling them. Among those accused of purchasing the body parts from the Lodges are Katrina Maclean, 44, of Salem, Massachusetts; and Joshua Taylor, 46, of West Lawn, Pennsylvania. Federal prosecutors said that Cedric Lodge even permitted Maclean and Taylor to enter Harvard's morgue to examine the cadavers for themselves and select which parts they wanted to purchase.
Lodge is no longer listed on Harvard Medical School’s website as a staff member, and in a prepared statement, the school said his employment was terminated in May."Some crimes defy understanding," US Attorney Gerard Karam said in a statement.as quoted by a news portal adding, "The theft and trafficking of human remains strikes at the very essence of what makes us human." People whose body parts were sold had volunteered their remains to be used to educate medical professionals. The Harvard Medical School cooperated with the investigation, Gerard Karam informed.
George Daley, the dean of the Harvard Faculty of Medicine, said in a statement to the school's community that "we are appalled to learn that something so disturbing could happen on our campus." Daley said Harvard Medical School, which first learned of the allegations in March, was searching its records, particularly logs showing when donor remains were sent to be cremated and when Lodge was on campus, to try to determine which donors' body parts may have been trafficked. Harvard's office of media relations said it could not provide more information, citing the criminal investigation.