US EditionHarvard Morgue Manager Sentenced to 8 Years for Selling Remains
Cedric Lodge received eight years and Denise Lodge one year for stealing and selling body parts from Harvard donors, earning up to $95,000, prosecutors said.
- On Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, U.S. District Judge Matthew W. Brann sentenced Cedric Lodge, former Harvard Medical School morgue manager, to eight years, capping a two-and-a-half-year scandal.
- Between 2018 and 2022 investigators say Lodge stole organs, brains, skin, hands, feet, spines and skulls from donated cadavers at Harvard Medical School, with arrests in 2023 exposing the four-year scheme.
- Prosecutors say he sold parts to buyers met online, including Facebook groups, and at least once invited a purchaser into the morgue, selling two dissected faces for $600 while Denise Lodge shipped parts and accepted PayPal payments, earning an estimated $40,000 to $95,000.
- Both defendants were ordered to begin their prison terms on Jan. 16, with Denise Lodge sentenced to one year and a day; more than 400 donor families may have been affected as civil suits against Harvard proceed.
- Prosecutors had sought a 10-year sentence, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Alisan V. Martin citing online chat evidence and saying the conduct `shocks the conscience`, while Patrick Casey said `There is undoubtedly a level of numbness or lack of appreciation for the sensitivities of the general public.
94 Articles
94 Articles
Harvard morgue manager who sold body parts like 'baubles' gets 8-year prison term
A former manager of the Harvard Medical School morgue in Boston was sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing and selling body parts “as if they were baubles.” Authorities said Cedric Lodge was at the center of a ghoulish scheme in which he shipped brains, skin, hands and faces to buyers in Pennsylvania and elsewhere after cadavers donated to Harvard were no longer needed for research. His wife, Denise Lodge, was sentenced to just over a y…
Former Harvard Morgue Manager, Wife Sentenced for Stealing and Selling Body Parts
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 interst…
How did the two respond?The accused chief, Cedric Lodge, aged 58, was arrested in May 2023, along with his wife, Denise Lodge, at 65 years of age.He was arrested for one year and six months of detention, accused of actively supporting the illegal sale of human remains seized by the sea.Cedric Lodge, according to federal investigators, would have been involved between 2018 and 2022, in an extended network operating at national level and engaged i…
The former head of the morgue at Harvard University was convicted of trafficking in body parts.
The head of the morgue at Harvard University Medical School in the United States has been sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing human remains to sell them, a ruling that extends to his wife, sentenced to one year in prison. The U.S. Department of Justice has indicated in a statement that the man, identified as Cedric Lodge, 58, has pleaded guilty to stealing the remains, including organs, skin, limbs, faces and even heads. These events…
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