The former manager of the Harvard Medical School morgue, Cedric Lodge, has been sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing and selling body parts from cadavers donated for medical research.
Lodge, who ran the morgue for over 20 years before his 2023 arrest, pleaded guilty in May to transporting stolen body parts across state lines. Prosecutors said he removed heads, faces, brains, skin, and hands from cadavers, taking them to his home in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where he sold them to multiple individuals.
“The defendant caused deep emotional harm to an untold number of family members left to wonder about the mistreatment of their loved ones’ bodies,” prosecutors wrote in court filings.
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Lodge’s wife, Denise, was sentenced to one year in prison for her role in facilitating sales, including to buyers in Pennsylvania who largely resold the parts.
Prosecutors had requested the maximum sentence of 10 years, describing Lodge’s actions as shocking and carried out for the amusement of the “oddities” community. His attorney, Patrick Casey, requested leniency while acknowledging the harm caused to both the deceased and their grieving families.
Harvard Medical School has called Lodge’s actions “abhorrent and inconsistent with the standards and values that Harvard, our anatomical donors, and their loved ones expect and deserve.” In October, a US court ruled that the school could be sued by donors’ families, describing the case as a “macabre scheme spanning several years.”