Wed Dec 17 02:01:11 UTC 2025: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Former Harvard Morgue Manager Sentenced to 8 Years for Body Part Theft and Sale

WILLIAMSPORT, PA – Cedric Lodge, the former manager of the Harvard Medical School morgue, was sentenced to eight years in federal prison on Tuesday for stealing and selling body parts from donated cadavers. Lodge, 58, pleaded guilty in May to transporting stolen goods across state lines.

For over two decades, Lodge exploited his position to pilfer heads, faces, brains, skin, and hands from cadavers meant for medical research. He then transported these remains from the morgue to his home in Goffstown, New Hampshire, and sold them to multiple individuals, including two people in Pennsylvania.

“He caused deep emotional harm to an untold number of family members left to wonder about the mistreatment of their loved ones’ bodies,” prosecutors stated. They had sought a 10-year sentence, calling Lodge’s actions “abhorrent,” motivated by profit and catering to the “disturbing ‘oddities’ community.”

Lodge’s wife, Denise, was also sentenced to one year in prison for her role in facilitating the sales. The body parts were primarily resold by the buyers.

While Lodge’s lawyer asked for leniency acknowledging the “harm his actions have inflicted on both the deceased persons whose bodies he callously degraded and their grieving families,” District Judge Matthew Brann handed down the eight-year sentence.

Harvard Medical School has yet to comment on the specific sentencing, but previously condemned Lodge’s actions as “abhorrent and inconsistent with the standards and values that Harvard, our anatomical donors, and their loved ones expect and deserve.” The institution is also facing a lawsuit from family members who donated the bodies of loved ones. A US court ruled in October that Harvard Medical School could be sued by family members who had donated the bodies of loved ones for medical research. In that case, Chief Justice Scott L Kafker described the affair as a “macabre scheme spanning several years”.

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