Harvard Morgue Manager Sentenced to 8 Years for Selling Remains
The Facts
- Harvard Medical School's former morgue manager, Cedric Lodge, and his wife, Denise Lodge, were sentenced on Tuesday for the interstate transport of stolen human remains, with Cedric receiving eight years' imprisonment and Denise 12 months and one day.
- According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), from 2018 through at least March 2020, Cedric, who pled guilty in May, removed human remains — including organs, brains and dissected heads — from cadavers donated to Harvard for medical research and training purposes.
- Without the permission of his employer, the donors or the donors’ families, Cedric took the remains to his home in New Hampshire, where he and his wife sold and shipped the body parts to buyers or arranged for them to be collected in person.
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The Spin
Narrative A
As the evidence has made clear, in committing these reprehensible crimes, Lodge acted alone, without the permission or knowledge of anyone at the medical school. This betrayal, therefore, is not indicative of any institutional failure on Harvard Medical School's part but an indictment of Lodge's character, which Harvard has sought to correct by supporting donor families.
Narrative B
Harvard failed miserably to protect the donated remains under its care and looked the other way for years despite mounting red flags. Even with its duty to respect the dignity of the dead, Harvard had little to no controls in place to prevent this harm from occurring. The families affected by Lodge's crime, therefore, deserve to know how Harvard allowed this to happen.
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