Morgue manager accused of selling ‘heads, brains skin and bones’ on black market

Former Harvard Medical School morgue manager Cedric Lodge, along with his wife and several others, have been accused of trafficking body parts stolen from the school’s morgue, Boston25News reported on Thursday. The human remains trafficking ring — where dissected faces allegedly sold for $600, human brains for $200 and a human head sold for $1,000 — operated on the black market via Facebook, PayPal and the U.S. Postal Service in a multi-state scheme.

Norwood local Sarah Hill spoke with the news station to discuss her late aunt Christine Eppich, whose remains were donated to the Harvard Anatomical Program after she passed from pancreatic cancer.

“She was my favorite aunt,” Hill told Boston25News. “She worked with special needs children and adults and everyone loved Christine.”

The news of the trafficking ring brought distress to the Norwood native, as the family now wonders what could have happened to their loved one’s body.

“It’s been a frantic 24 hours,” she said. “I received Christine’s remains back this fall after not having them for two years. You know you give your loved one to a program like Harvard and you think that everything will be done properly. And that people would never profit from something like this.”

Prosecutors said Lodge stole organs and other human body parts from 2018 through 2022 while managing the school’s morgue for the Harvard Anatomical Program. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is still working to identify victims affected by the ring.

“Christine wanted other people to benefit from her passing so that she could be studied. So that the doctors of the future or tomorrow could study her body and find not only a cure for pancreatic cancer but for some other, you know, disease,” Hill said. “And we as family members gave her body to Harvard thinking that she was in the best hands possible.”