Morgue manager stole parts from donated bodies and sold them on social media, feds say
Six people were charged in a “heinous” scheme to traffic human remains, including brains, hearts and whole fetuses, federal officials said.
The group, which officials said included members of a nationwide black market, bought and sold body parts secretly taken from morgues in Massachusetts and Arkansas, officials said.
“Some crimes defy understanding,” U.S. Attorney Gerard Karam said in a June 14 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
Some of the remains were stolen from cadavers donated for medical research at the Harvard Medical School in Boston, officials said.
The manager of the medical school morgue, a 55-year-old man from Goffstown, New Hampshire, secretly harvested organs “and other parts” before cremation between 2018 and 2022, officials said.
He and his wife then sold the remains to people around the country via their phones or social media, officials said. Among the buyers were a 46-year-old man from West Lawn, Pennsylvania, and a 44-year-old woman from Salem, Massachusetts, according to the Attorney’s Office.
The manager sometimes allowed the pair inside the morgue to peruse the cadavers and pick which body parts they’d like to purchase, officials said.
The two then resold the stolen remains for profit, officials said, including to a 41-year-old man from Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.
The man also bought remains from a mortuary worker in Little Rock, Arkansas, officials said.
The worker, who was previously charged, reportedly sold hearts, brains, genitals and fetuses, including one for a discount because it wasn’t “in great shape,” according to previous reporting from McClatchy News.
Officials said the Bloomsburg man resold many of the remains he purchased, including to a 52-year-old man from East Bethel, Minnesota. The pair exchanged more than $100,000 in payments, according to the Attorney’s Office.
“It is particularly egregious that so many of the victims here volunteered to allow their remains to be used to educate medical professionals and advance the interests of science and healing,” Karam stated in the release. “For them and their families to be taken advantage of in the name of profit is appalling.”
Five of the people, including the Harvard morgue manager and his wife, were indicted on conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen goods charges. One of the individuals, the man from Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, was charged with criminal information.
“We are so very sorry for the pain this news will cause for our anatomical donors’ families and loved ones,” George Daley, dean of the faculty of medicine at the Harvard Medical School, wrote in a June 14 statement. “The reported incidents are a betrayal of HMS and, most importantly, each of the individuals who altruistically chose to will their bodies to HMS through the Anatomical Gift Program to advance medical education and research.”
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