Ex-Harvard morgue manager to plead guilty in stolen body parts case
The former manager at the Harvard Medical School morgue , who was accused of stealing and selling body parts, is set to plead guilty to a single count of interstate transport of stolen goods, court records show.
Cedric Lodge, of Goffstown, New Hampshire, becomes at least the third person to plead guilty in the stolen human remains scheme — his wife, Denise, pleaded guilty last April, and another man, Jeremy Pauley, pleaded guilty in September 2023.
Lodge was previously slated to go on trial next month.
The plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania indicates that prosecutors will drop the conspiracy charge Lodge faces, but does not indicate what his sentence may be. Instead, the agreement says prosecutors will make a recommendation they consider "appropriate ... up to and including the maximum sentence of imprisonment."
The maximum sentence Lodge faces is 10 years in prison.
Lodge oversaw the morgue at Harvard Medical School, and beginning in 2018 started stealing dissected portions of dead bodies donated to the morgue, including heads, brains, skin and bones. He continued doing so until March 2023, according to federal prosecutors.
He and Denise Lodge were among six people charged with trafficking remains in 2023, a group that included Katrina MacLean, a Salem woman who owned a shop in Peabody
Cedric Lodge would bring the stolen body parts from the Harvard morgue to New Hampshire, where he and his wife negotiated their online sale. The Lodges shipped two dozen hands, two feet, nine spines, portions of skulls, five dissected human faces and two dissected heads as part of the scheme, PennLive reported.
In doing so, Cedric Lodge violated a Harvard Medical School policy barring employees from removing, keeping or selling any remains.
The couple netted payments totaling in the tens of thousands over the course of the scheme, according to prosecutors .
In the wake of the indictments against Lodge and others, several families whose loved ones donated their bodies to Harvard Medical School filed lawsuits in Suffolk Superior Court accusing the university of negligence.
The lawsuits were tossed by a lower court judge, but the Supreme Judicial Court is weighing whether to reinstate them .
Jeffrey Catalano, an attorney for the families, told the state's highest court in February that security cameras surrounding the morgue showed Lodge "letting unauthorized strangers" in and "dragging body parts out" to his car.
The car had a license plate reading "grim reaper," Catalano said.
