Ex-Harvard morgue manager who stole body parts gets 8 years in prison

Judge sentences erstwhile Harvard Medical School morgue manager for stealing organs and assorted assemblage parts for merchantability to others.

The former manager of the Harvard Medical School morgue has been sentenced to 8 years successful situation for the theft and merchantability of assemblage parts, taken from cadavers that had been donated for aesculapian research.

Cedric Lodge, who managed the morgue for much than 2 decades earlier being arrested successful 2023, was fixed an eight-year condemnation by a US District Judge successful Pennsylvania connected Tuesday.

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“He caused heavy affectional harm to an untold fig of household members near to wonderment astir the mistreatment of their loved ones’ bodies,” prosecutors wrote successful a tribunal filing.

The 58-year-old Lodge pleaded blameworthy to transporting stolen goods crossed authorities lines successful May, with prosecutors stating that helium had taken heads, faces, brains, skin, and hands from cadavers successful the morgue to his location successful Goffstown, New Hampshire, earlier selling them to respective individuals.

Lodge’s wife, Denise, was besides sentenced to 1 twelvemonth successful situation for her relation successful facilitating the merchantability of the stolen organs and body parts to respective individuals, including 2 radical successful Pennsylvania, who past mostly resold them.

Prosecutors asked District Judge Matthew Brann successful Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to springiness Lodge 10 years successful prison, the maximum condemnation for the crime, which they said “shocks the conscience” and was carried retired “for the amusement of the disturbing ‘oddities’ community”.

Patrick Casey, a lawyer for Lodge, asked the justice for leniency, portion conceding “the harm his actions person inflicted connected some the deceased persons whose bodies helium callously degraded and their grieving families”.

Harvard Medical School has yet to remark connected Lodge’s sentencing, but has antecedently called his actions “abhorrent and inconsistent with the standards and values that Harvard, our anatomical donors, and their loved ones expect and deserve”.

A US tribunal ruled successful October that Harvard Medical School could beryllium sued by household members who had donated the bodies of loved ones for aesculapian research. In that case, Chief Justice Scott L Kafker described the matter arsenic a “macabre strategy spanning respective years”.

Harvard Medical School successful the Longwood Medical Area successful Boston, Massachusetts, US, successful 2022 [Brian Snyder/Reuters]