By: Winston Wei
Last Wednesday, June 14th, 2023, a researcher discovered that his wife’s remains were trafficked after he donated her body parts to the Harvard Medical School. This researcher was Jack Porter, and his wife’s corpse, Raya, was sold as part of a trafficking ring. According to prosecutors, Cedric Lodge, a former morgue manager at Harvard Medical School, ran the trafficking ring in a scheme that stretched from 2018 to early 2023.
Porter, vexed with Raya’s trafficking, shared his story with the Boston Herald.
“What bothers me is that there’s somebody in some basement somewhere in this country or elsewhere fondling my wife’s body parts,” Porter said, “It could be her brain, her skin, her bones. This is disgusting and this is why there should be a severe punishment.”
Cedric Lodge, his wife, and three other people were indicted in connection with the trafficking of human body parts. Katrina Maclean, Joshua Taylor, and Mathew Lampi were charged with conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen goods. Lodge, 55, stole parts of corpses donated to the medical school without the school’s knowledge or permission. He sometimes took the body parts back home with his wife, Denise, while Lodge sent some parts to buyers via mail, authorities said. Lodge also allowed visitors to come to the morgue to pick what body parts they wanted to buy.
According to authorities, when someone donates a body to a medical school for education or research, they are burnt and returned to the donor’s family. Once they are no longer needed. However, this procedure was interrupted when Lodge and the other members of the trafficking ring stole the bodies from the morgue.
Harvard Medical School Deans George Daley and Edward Hundert said that the matter was “morally reprehensible” in a message posted to the school titled “An abhorrent betrayal.” After Lodge was fired on May 6th as their morgue manager, they wrote about it in their message.
“We are appalled to learn that something so disturbing could happen on our campus — a community dedicated to healing and serving others,” Daley and Hundert said, “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.”
After Lodge was indicted, Porter stated his views about Lodge and his crimes.
“I don’t have hatred for Mr. Lodge, I pity him,” Porter said.
Representatives for Harvard and Lodge did not immediately respond to a request to comment. A representative for Joshua Taylor, one of the members of the trafficking ring, declined to comment. Even in a community as prestigious as Harvard Medical School, bad things could happen.