WILLIAMSPORT. Father.– The wife of a former Harvard Medical School morgue manager pleaded guilty to a federal charge after investigators said she sent stolen human body parts — including hands, feet and heads — to buyers.
Denise Lodge, 64, of Goffstown, New Hampshire, pleaded guilty Friday in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania to one count of interstate transportation of stolen property, according to court records.
Federal prosecutors last year announced charges against Lodge, her husband Cedric and five others in an alleged scheme in which a nationwide network of people bought and sold human remains stolen from Harvard and an Arkansas morgue.
Prosecutors allege that Denise Lodge brokered online sales of a number of items between 2028 and March 2020, including two dozen hands, two feet, nine spines, portions of skulls, five dissected human faces and two dissected heads, PennLive.com reported .
Authorities said dissected portions of cadavers donated to the school were taken between 2018 and early 2023 without the school’s knowledge or permission. A Pennsylvania man, Jeremy Pauley of Thompson, is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty last year to conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen property.
Denise Lodge’s attorney, Hope Lefeber, told WBUR in a February interview that her client’s husband “was doing it and she just went along with it.” She said “what happened here is wrong,” but no one lost money and the matter was “more of a moral and ethical dilemma… than a criminal case.”
Bodies donated to Harvard Medical School are used for educational, teaching, or research purposes. When no longer needed, bodies are usually cremated and the ashes are returned to the donor’s family or buried in a cemetery.
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
