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Denise Lodge helped her husband, former Harvard morgue manager Cedric Lodge, traffick in cadavers, prosecutors said. (Screenshot of Denise Lodge: WMUR; screenshot of Cedric Lodge: WBTS)
The wife of Harvard’s former morgue manager pleaded guilty on Friday in a Pennsylvania federal court, almost four months before she, her spouse, and others were scheduled to stand trial in a wide-ranging corpse trafficking network.
According to the plea agreement filed on Feb. 21, prosecutors stand poised to recommend Denise Lodge receive a two or three-level reduction in her offense level for acceptance of responsibility. Under the same document, however, Chief Judge Matthew W. Brann’s hands are not tied. He can choose to ignore that recommendation and even sentence Lodge to up to 10 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, and supervised release of up to three years.
Prosecutors have said that the defendant’s husband, Cedric Lodge, stole body parts from donated cadavers and took them to his home in New Hampshire. Using his position to traffic in all manner of human remains, he allowed co-defendants like Katrina Maclean, Joshua Taylor, and others into the HMS morgue to pick out body parts for purchase, authorities said. Body parts included heads, brains, skin, bones, and other human remains, prosecutors said.
Documents described Denise Lodge as also participating in the scheme. For example, Denise allegedly communicated with a person identified in documents only as “Individual 1,” a Pennsylvania resident. She agreed to sell him the remains that her husband stole from Harvard, according to documents. She shipped the cadaver parts, prosecutors said.
Also, between Sept. 3, 2018, through July 12, 2021, Taylor allegedly sent 39 payments totaling $37,355.56, to a PayPal account that Denise Lodge operated. That was for human remains that Cedric Lodge stole from Harvard, authorities said.
Denise Lodge’s plea agreement for the charge of aiding and abetting interstate transport of stolen goods indicates that, in her case, the crime involved a loss of more than $40,000 but less than $95,000.
In the fallout from the body-trafficking debacle, Harvard fired Cedric Lodge, and the disgraced morgue manager was scheduled to stand trial beginning Aug. 5 with his wife, Maclean, and Taylor. The three remaining defendants in this trial have pleaded not guilty.
Others charged in the wide-ranging trafficking network included a skeleton “expert,” and one man who allegedly used skulls and body parts to decorate his home.
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