by members of a ghoulish robbery ring theft of human remains from the Harvard Medical School morgue in Boston and sold those body parts to a national network of buyers, officials said Wednesday.
Charges handed down by a grand jury in scrantonPennsylvania, spoke to morgue manager Cedric Lodge, 55, and his wife Denise Lodge, 63, who live in Goffstown, New Hampshire.
Salem, Massachusetts resident Katrina Maclean, 44, and West Lawn, Pennsylvania man Joshua Taylor, 46, were also charged in the alleged scheme. Maclean is the owner and operator of a store called Kat’s Creepy Creations, authorities said.
All are charged with conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen property.
«At times, Cedric Lodge allowed Maclean and Taylor to enter the Harvard Medical School morgue and examine corpses to choose what to buy.» according to a statement by federal prosecutors. «On some occasions, Taylor transported stolen remains back to Pennsylvania. On other occasions, Lodges shipped stolen remains to Taylor and others out of state.»
Cedric Lodge «stole dissected portions of donated carcasses, including, for example, heads, brains, skin, bones and other human remains, without the knowledge or permission of HMS,» according to the indictment.
He and his wife would communicate with buyers via websites and cell phones «regarding sales of stolen human remains,» according to court documents.
The 15-page indictment did not go into extensive detail about what the body parts were purchased for, but mentioned how Maclean shipped human skin to a man in Pennsylvania «and engaged his services to tan the skin to create leather.»
Maclean asked Cedric Lodge to provide more tissue to send to the «guy I send the chest piece to get a tan,» according to the indictment.
Between September 3, 2018 and July 12, 2021, Taylor sent 39 electronic payments, totaling $37,355.56, to a PayPal account managed by Denise Lodge for human remains that Cedric Lodge stole from Harvard, the indictment says.
A May 19, 2019 payment from Taylor had a memo, «head number 7,» and a November 20, 2020 transaction was for «nerds.»
An attorney for Taylor declined to discuss the case when contacted by NBC News Wednesday afternoon. Attorneys for Cedric Lodge, Denise Lodge and Maclean could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.
«We are horrified to know that something so disturbing could happen on our campus, a community dedicated to healing and serving others.» Harvard Medical School said in a statement.
«The reported incidents are a betrayal of HMS and, more importantly, of every individual who altruistically chose to donate their bodies to HMS through the Anatomical Donation Program to advance medical education and research.» .
Brittany Kubicko and Madelyn Urabe contributed.
