Stolen organs, faces, dead babies: Feds bust heinous body-part trafficking ring
Enlarge / Medical examiner or forensic scientist with dead man's corpse in morgue. (credit: Getty Images)
Federal prosecutors have charged seven people in an alleged nationwide network that trafficked stolen human body parts and remains taken from Harvard Medical School and an Arkansas mortuary—a "heinous crime" that involved the desecration of stillborn babies, faces, brains, hearts, skin, genitalia, bones, and other body parts in exchanges that netted defendants thousands of dollars.
Key figures in the alleged network are: Cedric Lodge, 55, of Goffstown, New Hampshire, who managed the morgue for the Anatomical Gifts Program at Harvard Medical School; and Candace Chapman Scott, 36, of Little Rock, Arkansas, who worked at a local mortuary and crematorium.
According to US Attorney Gerard Karam, between 2018 and 2022, Lodge stole organs and other parts from cadavers donated for medical research and education before their scheduled cremation. At times, Lodge allegedly allowed buyers to enter the morgue and look through cadavers, essentially shopping for the body parts they wanted to purchase. Shoppers sometimes bought them directly, transporting them out of the state on their own. At other times, Lodge shipped them or brought them to his home in New Hampshire, where he had help selling them from his wife, Denise Lodge, 63, who is also charged.