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The wife of Harvard Medical School’s disgraced former morgue manager pleaded guilty Friday to interstate transport of stolen goods, which included hands, feet and other body parts stolen from the institution’s morgue, the Associated Press reported.
Federal prosecutors brought conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen goods charges in 2023 against Denise Lodge, her husband, Cedric Lodge, who managed the morgue until Harvard fired him last year, and five other people for their alleged involvement in buying and selling human remains taken from both Harvard’s morgue and a mortuary in Arkansas.
Online buyers of the body parts sent payments to a PayPal account that Denise Lodge appeared to manage. Some of the memos describing the various sales included “head number 7” and “braiiiiiins” another, Boston-area ABC affiliate WCVB reported in June 2023.
Another co-conspirator, Jeremy Pauley, has already pleaded guilty to conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen property and is awaiting sentencing, according to the Associated Press.
Cedric Lodge has pleaded not guilty and his trial is slated for August, according to CBS News.
The families of the people whose cadavers Lodge allegedly dismembered and sold filed a lawsuit against Harvard last year, claiming the university did not ensure proper care of their relatives’ donated remains.
But a Massachusetts judge ruled in February that Harvard wasn’t liable for the stolen corpses.
“Though the appalling things that Lodge allegedly did are not protected by this immunity statute, the allegations in the complaints make clear that Harvard and [employees of Harvard Medical School’s Anatomical Gift Program] are not vicariously liable for Lodge’s actions,” the judge’s ruling said.
