A former Harvard Medical School morgue manager has agreed to plead guilty to stealing and selling body parts which had been donated for medical research.
Cedric Lodge, 56, managed the Ivy League’s morgue for 27 years until he was arrested in 2023 for transporting goods across state lines.
He plans to plead guilty to the charge, according to a plea agreement filed on Wednesday at a federal court in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
Lodge had been due to face trial on May 5 alongside a woman who prosecutors said bought body parts from him and his wife, who pleaded guilty last year.
Lodge, who stole heads, brains and bones from the morgue, now faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail. His lawyer declined to comment on Thursday.
Prosecutors said Lodge stole everything from brains to skin and bones from the Massachusetts morgue and smuggled them to him home in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where he and his wife flogged them.
He even allowed potential buyers into the school’s morgue to examine the human bodies donated and select which parts they wanted to buy, prosecutors said.
The buyers mostly resold the body parts, according to the allegations aired in court.
Cedric Lodge, 56, managed the Ivy League’s morgue for 27 years, from 1995, until he was arrested in 2023 for transporting goods across state lines
Some of the human remains allegedly stolen and sold by Lodge included half a head, a whole head, three brains, heart, liver, lung, two kidneys, female pelvis, torso, and four human hands
Cedric Lodge drove a bright orange Subaru sporting the license plate ‘GRIM-R’
Families that entrusted their loved ones’ remains to Harvard filed about a dozen lawsuits against the school following the arrest of Lodge and others charged in the scandal, accusing it of mishandling the bodies.
But a Massachusetts judge dismissed those cases last year, saying the lawsuits failed to plausibly allege Harvard failed to act in good faith in handling the bodies or was legally responsible for Lodge’s ‘horrifying’ conduct.
Those families are awaiting a decision from Massachusetts’ highest court on whether it will reverse that decision.
Harvard did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
It had previously said it was appalled by Lodge’s conduct and was sorry for the uncertainty and distress that families faced as a result of his actions.
An independent review Harvard launched of its cadaver donation program recommended in late 2023 that it implement more oversight and better documentation.
Lodge started work as Harvard Med’s morgue manager back in 1995, assuming the post when he was 27 years old.
For years, he would run the school’s Anatomical Gift Program, during which time thousands of Good Samaritans donated their bodies to the school for research purposes.
Lodge, meanwhile, lived 60 miles away with his wife in suburban New Hampshire, commuting an hour each day – eventually in a car sporting the license plate ‘GRIM-R.’
Cedric Lodge, 56, managed the Ivy League’s morgue for 27 years, from 1995, until he was arrested in 2023 for transporting goods across state lines
Lodge lived 60 miles away with his wife in suburban New Hampshire, commuting an hour each day to Boston
Lodge’s wife Denise is also accused of being involved and overseeing electronic payments for the stolen human remains through a PayPal account
At the school, he was tasked with preparing for and accepting donors’ bodies, embalming them and overseeing their storage.
When they were finished being used for research, the bodies would then be prepared by Lodge to be transported to a crematory – a crucial step prosecutors said Lodge eventually lost sight of.
All the while, thousands of the most talented young medical minds in the country were being molded in the halls above. Four different deans – all working next-door – came and went, and Lodge still went unnoticed.
By 2013, feds said he was stealing supplies like body bags, citing a post to the online forum DeviantArt from the morgue man – who, by 2018, had allegedly upgraded to the corpses.
‘I have been looking for customers interested in purchasing some heavy body bags and other miscellaneous medical toys,’ Lodge wrote in a post resurfaced by prosecutors, looking for ‘a little cash to plan a vacation.’
Prosecutors say he went on to invite interested parties into the hallowed university’s off-limits morgue – before pawning off parts of donated cadavers like brains, skulls, and skin to the highest bidder.
This reportedly continued for at least five years – in a practice that harked back to the days when professors relied on body snatchers to rob graves in the 18th and 19th centuries.
And he wasn’t alone. His wife, Denise, oversaw electronic payments for the stolen human remains through PayPal.
A supporting cast of buyers were also involved – funneling tens of thousands in the form of dozens of payments to the account.
Many of these payments sported macabre descriptions – such as ‘head number 7’ or in one case, ‘braiiiiiins.’
Daytime view of the Harvard Medical School quadrangle. In the basement, sits the halls of windowless, subterranean space Lodge manned for some 27 years
Jeremy Pauley, 41, was arrested after his estranged wife called the police in June of 2022 to tell them something was amiss at his Enola home. It was this call that ended up blowing the Harvard morgue scandal wide open
Pauley’s home in Enola where officers found a plastic bag filled with human eyeballs, an expanse of human skin laid draped over the back of a chair and buckets of floating body parts including kidneys, lungs, a heart, a spleen, and a trachea
Pauley’s ‘house of horrors’ was located just across the road from a cemetery in Enola
It was one of these buyers who ended up inadvertently exposing the scandal.
That person was 41-year-old Pennsylvanian Jeremy Pauley, whose estranged wife called cops in June of 2022 to tell them something was amiss at his Enola home, which was located right across from a graveyard.
A dispatcher connected her to the East Pennsboro Township Police Department, who sent Sergeant Adam Shope to investigate.
One of the most senior officers on call in the sleepy town, he went on to blow the case wide open.
First, though, he came face-to-face with Pauley – who had black, scale-like tattoos covering half of his face and metal spikes protruding out of the top of his head.
One of his eyes was dyed black, Shope later told the Boston Globe – and in the homeowner’s mouth, was a set of sharpened, shark-like teeth.
The intimidating visage at first unsettled the investigator, whose superiors had told him during a brief that the woman had claimed Pauley was hoarding illegally obtained human remains.
But Pauley’s demeanor came in stark opposition to his appearance, Shope told the outlet – remembering Pauley as not only cooperative, but ‘nice as pie.’
Pauley, 40, was arrested and charged for abuse of a corpse, receiving stolen property and dealing in the proceeds of unlawful activities
In Pauley’s home in 2022, Pennsylvania cops found more than 50 human ribs and three full skeletons
Pauley was then charged with trafficking stolen human remains – including skulls, hearts, skin and stillborn babies
Pauley happily let him inside when the officer explained what he was investigating – and was immediately graced with a glimpse at the horrors the house had in store.
What awaited him inside was far from typical décor – with jars holding infant remains on full display, along with more than 50 human ribs and three full skeletons.
A placid Pauley proceeded to explain – calmly telling the officer how he was preservation specialist, specifically ‘of retired medical specimens’ and historic human remains.
A professional with a website and years of experience, he answered questions about the collection without any pushback – and left Shope in awe due to the extent of his cooperation.
He explained how his home doubled as his Memento Mori Museum, ‘a place where lost histories are regained and respectfully displayed.’
Pauley further revealed himself to be one of the most active dealers in a largely unknown – and unregulated – body part marketplace, where collectors preserve and shill ‘oddities’ such as human remains.
Explaining his prominence in the field and its scientific aspects, he successfully swayed Shope into believing his antics were above board.
‘During the course of the interview,’ Shope wrote in his report of the on June 20, 2022 visit, ‘it was determined that these items were lawfully purchased from medical facilities and museums.’
But another call from the same woman the next month reignited suspicions.
This time, the woman urged officers to visit her estranged spouse’s basement – cryptically telling them to look inside the multiple Home Depot buckets he had stored there.
Pauley is one of the most active dealers in a largely unknown – and unregulated – body part marketplace, where collectors preserve and shill ‘oddities’ such as human remains
He admitted to knowingly buying stolen human remains from several people, and then selling many of the stolen remains to others, including some who also knew they had been stolen. Pictured is an array of human teeth he kept at his house
Pauly allegedly purchased $4,000 worth of human remains from Candace Scott, who police say stole them from a mortuary partnered with the University of Arkansas
This time, the claim was enough for Shope to seek a search warrant, one he successfully obtained before paying a visit to the previously unseen basement, which Pauley neglected to include in his tour.
Moreover, for this visit, Pauley wasn’t present – but his wife was, and led the sergeant and other officers into the space to a scene straight out a snuff film.
There, officers recalled in an ensuing criminal complaint, a plastic bag filled with human eyeballs sat the floor, as an expanse of human skin laid draped over the back of a chair.
Inside the three buckets Pauley’s wife has warned about, laid a bevy of floating body parts – including kidneys, lungs, a heart, a spleen, and a trachea.
There were also two brains, as well as a skull with hair still attached, and a child-sized jawbone with teeth still in place.
A portrait of Jesus propped against a cardboard box loomed over the startling scene, while shipping labels on that box and elsewhere provided officers with the first hint of the extent of the illegal activity that had been occurring.
A federal investigation ensued, during which officials would eventually hone in on Lodge and several other buyers.
