Live humans are not the only ones being trafficked; even a human corpse can be smuggled and sold in the black market. This appalling trade was recently discovered by Federal investigators and was linked to the Harvard Medical School.
Pieces of human corpse
In a plan that reportedly began in 2018, one of the individuals accused, 55-year-old Cedric Lodge of New Hampshire, was accused of taking dissected pieces of cadavers or human corpse that had been donated to Harvard.
In addition to being charged with crimes, Katrina Maclean of Salem, Massachusetts, ran a shop that advertised “creations that shock the mind” as well as “creepy dolls, oddities, and bone art,” according to the store’s social media website.
Prosecutors claim that the defendants were a part of a national network that acquired and sold human remains that were taken from the medical school and an Arkansas morgue.
The discovery
Authorities learned about the countrywide criminal network for the first time after the arrest of Jeremy Lee Pauley, who was charged in Pennsylvania in July 2022 with abuse of a dead body, receiving stolen property, and other state offenses.
According to police, Pauley reportedly attempted to purchase stolen human remains from an Arkansas lady to resell online.
In a Kentucky case last week, an FBI document stated that Pauley purchased hearts, brains, lungs, and two fetus specimens from the Arkansas lady who was accused of stealing them from a morgue.
Harvard Medical School
Medical schools like Harvard accept donated bodies. Former mortuary manager of Harvard Medical School, Lodge was accused in the plot. Federal authorities claim that he removed the body parts from the mortuary at Harvard without the knowledge or consent of the university.
In Pauley’s instance, the body parts were initially given to the University of Arkansas for scientific study. Authorities said that they were ultimately kidnapped from a morgue where they were intended to be burned.
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