2023-06-15 09:50:56
Another five possible accomplices were accused of participating in a “national network” of buying and selling human remains.
According to US prosecutors, the director of the morgue at the renowned Harvard Medical School, Cedric Lodge, allegedly removed body parts from the site without authorization and sold them.
Prosecutor Gerard Karam said in a statement that Lodge, 55, was charged with trafficking in stolen human remains. He stressed that some crimes are difficult to understand and that it is extremely perverse to think that victims voluntarily offered their bodies to be used in medical education and the advancement of science and healing.
Lodge, his 63-year-old wife and five other possible accomplices were accused of participating in a “national network” of buying and selling human remains. According to the prosecution, between 2018 and 2022, Lodge allegedly stole organs and other body parts donated for medical research and education before they were cremated.
The warden is accused of taking these remains from Harvard, Boston, to his home in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where he sold them to two other defendants, Katrina Maclean and Joshua Taylor.
The prosecution pointed out that Lodge would sometimes allow Katrina and Taylor into the morgue to examine dead bodies and choose which ones to buy. Afterwards, Maclean and Taylor resold the remains.
According to the indictment, Katrina would have sent Taylor human skin to be “burned” and transformed into leather, as reported by “The Boston Globe”. Lodge was in charge of Harvard’s mortuary anatomical donation program, but the university said he was fired on May 6.
In addition, another accused allegedly stole remains from a mortuary in Arkansas, where she worked, including the bodies of two stillborn babies that were to be incinerated and returned to their families. Two other defendants allegedly bought and sold scraps between themselves, carrying out electronic transactions worth more than $100,000.
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