Former Harvard morgue manager jailed for selling body parts
A former Harvard Medical School morgue manager has been sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing and selling organs and other parts of cadavers donated to the school for medical research.
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Harvard University has agreed to pay $53 million to settle lawsuits filed by families who say a staff member stole their loved ones’ remains from the school’s morgue and sold them.
A Suffolk County Superior Court judge issued a preliminary approval for the settlement this week, according to online court records reviewed by USA TODAY. Harvard Medical School will also establish a scholarship for medical students to honor its anatomical donors beginning in the 2027-2028 academic year, Reuters reported.
The settlement comes three years after multiple families filed lawsuits beginning in June 2023 and claimed they donated remains of loved ones to the university.
The remains were “exposed to unlawful mishandling, viewing, dissection, and/or sale to third parties by the (now former) manager of the Harvard Medical School morgue Cedric Lodge,” according to court documents reviewed by USA TODAY.
Here’s a look back at the case.
Couple sentenced in ‘despicable’ body parts scheme
Last year, both Lodge, 58, and his wife, Denise Lodge, 65, were sentenced for interstate transport of stolen human remains. The former manager was sentenced to 96 months in prison, and his wife received a sentence of 12 months and a day in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
According to court documents, the families suffered “significant mental anguish and severe emotional distress” once they found out about the situation.
Among the plaintiffs were a daughter whose mother had arranged to have her own remains donated once she died, as well as a niece and son whose loved ones agreed to donate their remains for medical research before their own deaths.
Initially, multiple families filed lawsuits against the university. A judge dismissed the cases, but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in October revived the lawsuits, Reuters reported. Eventually, the lawsuits were consolidated into one, according to court documents.
George Daley, Harvard’s dean of the faculty of medicine, and Bernard Chang, the dean for medical education at Harvard Medical School, told the school community on Monday, Aug. 17, that Lodge’s scheme was “despicable, abhorrent, and a flagrant betrayal of our values as a medical community.”
What role did the former morgue manager and his wife play?
Lodge was manager of the Harvard Medical School Morgue. He worked there for nearly three decades, beginning in February 1995. The scheme unfolded between 2018 and March 2020, prosecutors said in a press release.
Families who are interested in donating the remains of their loved ones for medical research and education can do so by completing an agreement with the school’s Anatomical Gifts Program.
In relation to the lawsuits, the cadavers that had been donated had already been used for research and teaching purposes. The remains were supposed to be cremated, returned to the donor’s family or laid to rest in a cemetery, according to court documents.
As part of his job, Lodge was supposed to coordinate moving the cadavers to and from teaching labs, and once the school was done with them, preparing them to go to the crematorium or for burial, court documents show.
But he didn’t do that. Instead, prosecutors say Lodge took the human remains, including organs, brains, skin, hands, faces, dissected heads and other body parts.
He took the body parts to his home in New Hampshire, where he and his wife sold them, shipping them to buyers in other states and sometimes allowing buyers to pick up the remains.
According to the lawsuits, Lodge let some of the other defendants into the morgue to look at the bodies and choose the ones they wanted to buy.
Lodge was placed on leaves of absence in 2021, 2022 and 2023. He was fired in May 2023.
According to the lawsuits, one leave of absence took place two weeks before the school said it knew about the scheme.
“Harvard knew or should have known that defendant Cedric Lodge was mishandling donor bodies and allowing unauthorized third parties into the … morgue, and failed to take adequate and appropriate measures to prevent (it),” the lawsuits read.
Who else was charged?
Prosecutors claim the body parts stolen from Harvard’s morgue were taken to Salem, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. After Lodge sold the remains, some of them were resold for a profit.
“The trafficking of stolen human remains through the U.S. Mail is a disturbing act that victimizes already grieving families while also creating a potentially hazardous situation for Postal employees and customers,” said Christopher Nielsen, the inspector in charge of the Philadelphia Division of the Postal Inspection Service, in the press release.
According to prosecutors, those involved received the following sentences:
What rules is Harvard accused of violating?
The lawsuits allege that in order to use the cadavers for medical research and teaching, Harvard was bound by a set of guidelines.
Some of the guidelines include:
- Clearly describing the use of cadavers
- Documenting the use of the cadavers and having these records reviewed by an Institutional Oversight Committee on a regular basis
- Following all state and local requirements when shipping cadavers
- Keeping cadavers in facilities that are appropriate and can only be entered by authorized personnel
- Disposing of cadaveric remains properly and documenting it
The lawsuits allege that other staff members, including the director of the Anatomical Gift Program, failed to supervise Lodge and make sure the cadavers were handled properly.
Harvard told families it couldn’t know for sure if bodies were impacted
Another claim in the lawsuits is that Harvard left families in a state of limbo, not knowing whether their loved ones were impacted or not.
Community members found out about the trafficking scheme in June 2023, prompting Harvard to send letters to families. The school said there was not enough evidence to say which remains Lodge transported or showed to the other defendants.
“We can only say whether they were ‘potentially impacted’ or ‘not believed to be impacted,’” the university wrote.
The lawsuits pushed back against that.
“Family members of the decedents are entitled to know that their loved ones’ deceased bodies in the custody of Harvard and HMS are handled lawfully and with decency,” the lawsuits read.
What happens next?
In addition to the $53 million settlement, Harvard has also agreed to host a live webinar in which the Dean for Medical Education of Harvard Medical School will condemn the scheme as “morally reprehensible.” The school will also issue a statement letting community members know what changes have been put into place to improve the Anatomical Gifts Program.
The settlement includes two funds, including one for the primary settlement class and a second for a pre-2018 settlement class who are unsure whether their loved ones were impacted, according to court documents.
The settlement funds will be divided equally based on who filed valid claims based on their relation to the donors.
In the Aug. 17 letter to community members, Harvard said a third-party settlement administrator will be appointed and a website will be created with eligibility and claim submission information.
“This process, from beginning to end, is expected to take several months,” the notice read.
Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY’s trending team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Email her at sdmartin@usatoday.com.