Harvard Medical School Morgue Manager Caught Illegally Selling Bodies

A mortuary manager at Harvard Medical School in the United States was arrested and charged for stealing parts of donated corpses intended for dissection practice and selling them.

According to the indictment submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, reported by CNN on the 15th (local time), Cedric Logie (55) secretly removed body parts such as heads, brains, skin, and bones from corpses that had been dissected while working at the Harvard Medical School mortuary in Boston, Massachusetts.

He is accused of conspiring with his wife, Denise (63), to sell the stolen body parts to buyers. In October 2020, they sold facial parts taken from two corpses for $600 (approximately 770,000 KRW), and in 2019, they sold a corpse’s head for $1,000 (about 1,280,000 KRW).

The corpses from which they stole body parts had been donated to Harvard Medical School for educational purposes such as dissection practice.

Prosecutors believe Logie had been stealing and selling parts of remains in this manner from 2018 until March of this year. Logie, his wife, and others including MacLean and Taylor have all been charged with conspiracy and transportation of stolen goods.

Logie was dismissed from Harvard University in May.

Harvard stated, "This incident is a betrayal not only to Harvard Medical School but also to those who made the altruistic choice to donate their bodies for medical advancement. We express our regret for the pain this has caused the families of the donors."