Members of a macabre theft ring swiped human remains from the Harvard Medical School morgue in Boston and sold the body parts to a nationwide network of buyers, officials said Wednesday.
Indictments handed up by a grand jury in Scranton, Pennsylvania, targeted morgue manager Cedric Lodge, 55, and his wife, Denise Lodge, 63, who live in Goffstown, New Hampshire.
Katrina Maclean, 44, of Salem, Massachusetts, and Joshua Taylor, 46, of West Lawn, Pennsylvania, were also indicted. Maclean owns and operates a store called Kat’s Creepy Creations, officials said.
They’re all accused of conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen goods.
“At times, Cedric Lodge allowed Maclean and Taylor to enter the morgue at Harvard Medical School and examine cadavers to choose what to purchase,” federal prosecutors said in a statement. “On some occasions, Taylor transported stolen remains back to Pennsylvania. On other occasions, the Lodges shipped stolen remains to Taylor and others out of state.”
Cedric Lodge “stole dissected portions of donated cadavers, 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 reach out to buyers through websites and cellphones “regarding the sales of stolen human remains,” the court papers say.
The 15-page indictment doesn’t go into extended detail about what the body parts were purchased for, but it does mention that Maclean shipped human skin to a man in Pennsylvania “and engaged in his services to tan the skin to create leather.”
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