Ex-Harvard morgue manager who sold body parts sentenced to 8 years in jail

Ex-Harvard morgue manager who sold body parts sentenced to 8 years in jailJudge sentences former Harvard Medical School morgue manager for stealing organs and various body parts for sale to others.Published On 17 Dec 2025The former manager of the Harvard Medical School morgue has been sentenced to eight years in prison for the theft and sale of body parts, taken from cadavers that had been donated for medical research.Cedric Lodge, who managed the morgue for more than two decades before being arrested in 2023, was given an eight-year sentence by a US District Judge in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Harvard ruled as legally liable for theft of body parts from morguelist 2 of 3Alleged body part theft by Harvard morgue manager spurs lawsuitlist 3 of 3Ex-Harvard president Larry Summers apologises over Epstein emailsend of list“He caused deep emotional harm to an untold number of family members left to wonder about the mistreatment of their loved ones’ bodies,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.The 58-year-old Lodge pleaded guilty to transporting stolen goods across state lines in May, with prosecutors stating that he had taken heads, faces, brains, skin, and hands from cadavers in the morgue to his home in Goffstown, New Hampshire, before selling them to several individuals.Lodge’s wife, Denise, was also sentenced to one year in prison for her role in facilitating the sale of the stolen organs and body parts to several individuals, including two people in Pennsylvania, who then mostly resold them.Prosecutors asked District Judge Matthew Brann in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to give Lodge 10 years in prison, the maximum sentence for the crime, which they said “shocks the conscience” and was carried out “for the amusement of the disturbing ‘oddities’ community”.Patrick Casey, a lawyer for Lodge, asked the judge for leniency, while conceding “the harm his actions have inflicted on both the deceased persons whose bodies he callously degraded and their grieving families”.