Former Harvard Morgue Manager, Wife Sentenced for Stealing and Selling Body Parts

Several of the buyers have been sentenced to prison or are awaiting sentencing.

Denise Lodge (L) covers her face as she walks from the federal courthouse in Concord, N.H., on June 14, 2023. Steven Porter/The Boston Globe via AP, File

A former morgue manager at Harvard Medical School has been sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing and selling human body parts donated for scientific research, the Department of Justice said.

Cedric Lodge, 58, was sentenced on Dec. 16 during a hearing in federal court in Pennsylvania. His wife, Denise Lodge, 65, received a sentence of 12 months and one day in prison.

The couple previously pleaded guilty to charges related to the interstate transportation of stolen goods. Cedric Lodge admitted to stealing body parts from cadavers donated to Harvard Medical School’s Anatomical Gift Program and selling them to buyers across the country.

Prosecutors said that between 2018 and March 2020, Cedric Lodge stole and trafficked “heads, brains, skin, bones, and other human remains” after the donated bodies had been used for teaching and research. Under agreements between donors and Harvard, those bodies were supposed to be cremated or returned to their families.

According to the federal indictment, Cedric Lodge transported the stolen remains from Harvard Medical School in Boston to his home in New Hampshire, where he stored and sold them. Prosecutors said Denise Lodge assisted in the scheme by communicating with buyers, accepting payments, and arranging shipments of the stolen remains. Payments were often made online through her PayPal account.

The remains were sold to Katrina MacLean, Joshua Taylor, and others, prosecutors said. MacLean allegedly resold the remains to buyers across the country, including through her curiosities store, and Taylor has been accused of purchasing body parts from Lodge for resale. Lodge also allowed MacLean, Taylor, and others to enter the morgue to select which remains they wished to buy, according to the indictment.

MacLean, of Massachusetts, and Taylor, of Pennsylvania, have both pleaded guilty this year for their roles in the scheme and are awaiting sentencing. Several other buyers have already been sentenced to prison time.

The case has drawn widespread attention since federal authorities announced charges in 2023. Prosecutors brought the case in Pennsylvania because key elements of the crimes, including the shipping, receipt, and resale of stolen remains, took place in that jurisdiction.

“Today’s sentencing is another step forward in ensuring those who orchestrated and executed this heinous crime are brought to justice,” Wayne Jacobs, special agent in charge of the FBI Philadelphia Field Office, said in a statement.

Harvard Medical School officials said they were unaware of Cedric Lodge’s activities until notified by the FBI. The school placed him on leave in March 2023 after learning of the federal investigation and “immediately” suspended his campus access. He was fired in May of that year after investigators provided what the school said was “adequate information” to justify his termination.

Harvard, which hired Cedric Lodge in 1995, condemned his actions as an “abhorrent betrayal.”

“We owe it to ourselves, our community, our profession, and our patients and their loved ones to ensure that [Harvard Medical School] is worthy of the donors who have entrusted their bodies to us for the advancement of medical education and research,” Medical School Dean George Daley and Dean of Medical Education Edward Hundert wrote in a campuswide message following the indictment.

Although federal investigators did not find any criminal wrongdoing on Harvard’s part, the university is facing a class-action lawsuit brought by families affected by the scandal.

In February 2024, a Massachusetts Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit from family members of donors whose remains were stolen and sold. However, in October, a four-judge panel of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court revived the case, saying that the families had presented sufficient evidence to claim that Harvard failed to act in good faith in overseeing its morgue.

Harvard has maintained that Cedric Lodge’s conduct was “inconsistent with the standards and values of Harvard” and expressed “deep sorrow for the families of donors who may have been impacted,” according to student newspaper The Harvard Crimson.

An attorney representing Cedric Lodge did not respond to a request for comment.