Federal Investigators have discovered a trade in human body parts connected to Harvard Medical School. People or their families will sometimes donate their bodies to research Universities . Schools like Harvard Med . use the bodies for study or research. Most often when they are finished the bodies will be cremated and returned to the families ;or buried .

Cedric Lodge was a former manager of the morgue at Harvard Med. He took the body parts from Harvard’s morgue and sold them .

There is a market for these parts ?. This is where it really gets creepy .

Katrina Maclean of Salem, Massachusetts, owned Kats Creepy Creations . She sells “creations that shock the mind” along with “creepy dolls, oddities and bone art,”

Photos: Kat's Creepy Creations – Boston 25 News (https://www.boston25news.com/news/photos-kats-creepy/UVOKUA7SKFHNZEM4P4MY7LHLE4/)

If you search the web you will see many links to her unique art . The art looks real because it was real

Lodge and McClean and not alone . Evidently this is a significant niche market .

July 2022 Jeremy Lee Pauley, was charged with abuse of a corpse, receiving stolen property and other charges in Pennsylvania . He tried to buy body parts including hearts, brains, lungs and two fetal specimens from an Arkansas women for the purpose of reselling them on Fakebook (I have no reason to suspect the woman was Evita )

Last week the Feds busted James Nott in Kentucky He tried to buy skulls and spines from Pauley on Fakebook. When they searched his home they found “40 human skulls, spinal cords, femurs, and hip bones”

FBI: Kentucky Man Found With 40 Skulls, Spinal Cords, Bones in Home (insider.com) (https://www.insider.com/fbi-kentucky-man-40-skulls-bones-human-remains-trafficking-scheme-2023-7#:~:text=A%20Kentucky%20man%20busted%20by,remains %20trafficking%20scheme%2C%20FBI%20alleges&text=FBI%20agents%20found%20human%20skulls,home%2C %20a%20criminal%20complaint%20says.)

They found one skull wrapped in a head scarf and another on Nott's bed, along with a Harvard medical school bag. During the search, an FBI agent asked Nott if anyone else was in the residence. He responded, “only my dead friends.”

Is this legal ? Believe it or not it is an open question as Professor of Law at Wake Forest explains ......



It is not illegal to sell human remains under federal law. That’s why the defendants in the Harvard Medical School case were charged with interstate transport of stolen goods (https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdpa/pr/six-charged-trafficking-stolen-human-remains), rather than “trafficking human remains.”
There is actually very little federal law regarding the dead. The most significant is the Federal Trade Commission’s Funeral Rule (https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/topics/truth-advertising/funeral-rule), which requires funeral homes to provide certain disclosures to consumers.
Instead, the vast majority of law respecting the dead is state law, which varies significantly.
By my count, the sale of human remains is broadly and expressly illegal in only eight states: Florida (http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0800-0899/0872/Sections/0872.01.html#:%7E:text=View%20Entire%20Chapter,775 .082%20or%20s.), Georgia (https://codes.findlaw.com/ga/title-31-health/ga-code-sect-31-21-41/), Massachusetts (https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIV/TitleI/Chapter272/Section72), Missouri (https://www.revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=194.410&bid=10000&hl=#:%7E:text=194.410.,commits%20a%20class%20E%20f elony.), New Hampshire (https://www.revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=194.410&bid=10000&hl=#:%7E:text=194.410.,commits%20a%20class%20E%20f elony.), South Carolina (https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t44c043.php), Texas (https://casetext.com/statute/texas-codes/penal-code/title-9-offenses-against-public-order-and-decency/chapter-42-disorderly-conduct-and-related-offenses/section-4208-abuse-of-corpse#:%7E:text=Section%2042.08%20%2D%20Abuse%20o f%20Corpse%20(a)%20A%20person%20commits,illegally% 20disinterred%3B%20(3)%20sells) and Virginia (https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title32.1/chapter8/section32.1-303/).
Perhaps one reason the Harvard morgue case is being handled by the Department of Justice is that although selling human remains is illegal in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, it does not violate state law in Pennsylvania, where some of the activity took place.
In more than two dozen other states, it is illegal to sell human remains (https://www.lawyersandjudges.com/products/the-law-of-human-remains) only under certain circumstances. A number of these states make it expressly illegal to sell human remains or organs that were donated for anatomical study, transplantation or medical therapy.
Most commonly, it is illegal to sell human remains that have been unlawfully removed from a place of burial.


Is it legal to sell human remains? (theconversation.com) (https://theconversation.com/is-it-legal-to-sell-human-remains-171192)

Another strange case is coming out of Harvard .

A professor who studies honesty is accused of faking data . From the Compost

Francesca Gino, a tenured Harvard Business School professor who is a prominent and prolific researcher on leadership, decision-making and other topics, was accused in 2021 of manipulating data in a study about honesty, an irony not lost on the many reporters who have covered the scandal.

The 2012 paper, which said people were less dishonest when they signed forms before filling them out rather than after, was retracted by the journal. Gino has been placed on administrative leave at Harvard, and a blog written by scholars in her field of behavioural science, Data Colada, published new allegations in June, suggesting that more of her studies contain fake data.

Harvard professor accused of research misconduct is sues university - The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/03/harvard-honesty-lawsuit-research-misconduct/)