Former Harvard Medical School morgue manager sentenced to 8 years in prison for stolen bodies plot

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — The former Harvard Medical School morgue manager who stole and sold pieces of bodies donated to the school has been sentenced to 8 years in prison.  

A federal judge in Pennsylvania handed down the sentence to Cedric Lodge Tuesday, capping a two-and-a-half year scandal that ensnared the nation’s most prestigious medical school and exposed a nationwide network of human-remains trading.

Lodge’s wife, Denise, was sentenced to one year and a day in prison by the same judge, Matthew W. Brann.

Brann called Lodge the “central critical offender in this case,” and the person, by virtue of his Harvard job, who should have most understood people making the “selfless choice to dedicate their remains.”

“Mr. Lodge exploited for his own benefit the remains of people who could no longer speak for themselves,” Brann said. “His punishment must fit this horrible crime.”

More than 400 families whose loved ones donated their bodies to Harvard were possibly affected by the thefts. Kathleen Barber, whose father Richard Lord donated his body to the medical school, told the court Cedric Lodge had stolen the family’s peace. They don’t know what parts of their father may have been stolen or where his remains may be.

“We have no answers,” she said. “We are left with only the grimy underworld of crime you exposed us to.”

The Lodges had previously each pleaded guilty to one count of interstate transport of stolen goods. Those goods included skin, brains and hearts dissected and removed from the dead bodies of people who had donated their remains to Harvard to help medical students learn anatomy.

Prosecutors said Cedric Lodge sold these body parts to people he met online, including in Facebook groups. The buyers were collectors or people who then sold or traded the items again. Denise Lodge would ship the body parts and take payments via her PayPal account. At least once, Cedric Lodge invited a buyer into the university morgue, selling the person two dissected faces for $600, records show.

Cedric Lodge, former morgue manager at Harvard Medical School, leaves the courthouse after a sentencing hearing in Williamsport, Pa. on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025. (Ralph Wilson for WBUR)

Cedric Lodge spent almost three decades working at Harvard Medical School, and his attorney noted his supervisor called him a “pleasure to work with.” Yet in 2018, prosecutors said, Lodge started stealing body parts before the bodies were sent for cremation. The scheme was exposed with the arrest of Lodge and others in 2023.

Court documents filed by Denise Lodge claim Cedric told his wife the body parts were medical waste, and posed the sales as an opportunity to shore up the couple’s finances as Denise battled breast cancer and stopped working.

Lodge’s attorney Patrick Casey indicated that years working in a morgue with cadavers may have desensitized Lodge to the importance of the bodies he was entrusted with.

“There is undoubtedly a level of numbness or lack of appreciation for the sensitivities of the general public,” Casey said. “That job for 27 years had a toll on his mindset.”

In a soft voice, Lodge told the judge he knew it was wrong to take the body parts, and that he felt “deep regret” for the harm caused to the next of kin.

“I betrayed their trust and in retrospect I should have recognized the full impact of what I was doing,” he said.

Denise Lodge’s attorney, Hope Lefeber, said Denise was a generous friend who helped others, and that her involvement in the plot was an aberration in an otherwise respectful life.

Addressing the court, Denise Lodge said she was “truly sorry,” and that she knows what she did was wrong.

“I feel nothing but shame and regret,” she said.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Alisan Martin pointed to one online chat between Denise and a frequent buyer over a dissected face. In it, the buyer told her, “you have always been so helpful.” Denise responded with three smiley face emojis.

“That was the way she chose to engage with the faces and brains of people who hoped to make a positive impact with the donations of their bodies,” Martin said.

The couple earned $40,000 to $95,000 in the scheme that went on for at least four years, prosecutors estimated.

Denise Lodge’s attorney asked for her to receive no prison time, citing her metastatic cancer and low level of culpability in the plot — limited to shipping and receiving payments. Attorney Lefeber called any prison time for Denise a “death sentence.”

Prosecutors asked the judge to sentence Denise Lodge to a year in prison.

And for Cedric Lodge, prosecutors had requested he get 10 years in prison, the maximum possible sentence. His attorney had argued this was a violation of his plea agreement and that he should receive a more lenient sentence for taking responsibility for his crimes. Denise Lodge made a similar argument.

Judge Brann rejected those arguments and proceeded with Tuesday’s sentencing.

Both Lodges were ordered to report to prison on Jan. 16. The judge recommended they serve their time at the federal medical facility in Devens, due to their complex medical needs. Denise Lodge is undergoing chemotherapy treatment, while Cedric Lodge has suffered two strokes since 2018 and has other ongoing issues.

The couple arrived in court together and declined to provide any comment. After Denise’s sentence was handed down first, they kissed and embraced in the courtroom.

Cedric Lodge and his wife Denise leave court after a sentencing hearing in Williamsport, Pa. (Ralph Wilson for WBUR)

Lodge and his wife were among nine people charged in the case across the country. All have pleaded guilty; some are still awaiting sentencing.

Back in Boston, lawyers for Harvard and family members of donors met in a Suffolk Superior courtroom Tuesday. It was the first hearing since the Supreme Judicial Court ruled in October that the families’ civil suits against the university were able to move forward. In that decision, justices wrote that Harvard exhibited “extraordinary failure” in supervising Cedric Lodge.

The families are seeking damages against Harvard and said they hope the lawsuit will allow them to further understand how the thefts could have happened — and gone on undetected for years.