Former Harvard Morgue Employee Indicted for Organ Theft

Cedric Lodge, the manager of the Harvard Medical School morgue, was indicted and later pleaded guilty to interstate transport of stolen human remains after an investigation revealed he had been selling body parts taken from donated cadavers. Between 2018 and at least March 2020, Lodge removed organs, brains, skin, hands, and other parts from bodies donated to Harvard for medical research without the knowledge of the university, the donors, or their families.

Lodge transported the stolen remains to his home in New Hampshire, where he and his wife sold them by shipping tissue and body parts to buyers in other states. He was fired from Harvard in May 2023 when the scheme came to light. The case drew widespread attention as a profound breach of trust — donors had consented to body donation for science and education, not commercial sale.

The guilty plea settled Cedric Lodge's fate; Harvard's took three more years. Lodge drew eight years in December 2025 and his wife Denise a year and a day, but donor families had to go to the state's highest court, which ruled on October 6, 2025 that Harvard's failure to supervise its morgue could show a lack of good faith, reviving suits a Suffolk judge had dismissed, per WBUR. Harvard will now pay $53 million across two class funds covering an estimated 438 donors whose remains left the morgue between 2018 and March 2023, with preliminary approval granted on August 18, per CBS News. The final approval hearing is set for December 2026, and the donor scholarship begins in 2027.