Harvard agrees to millions in payouts after morgue manager sold body parts

Harvard has agreed to pay $53 million (£39 million) to settle lawsuits brought by families who alleged that the university mishandled the bodies of loved ones donated to its medical school, according to the BBC.

The proposed settlement, filed in a Boston court, would resolve lawsuits against Harvard Medical School (HMS) following former morgue manager Cedric Lodge’s guilty plea to stealing and selling human remains on the black market.

Lodge, 58, was accused of taking body parts from cadavers and selling them online as part of a scheme that allegedly operated between 2018 and 2021.

Lodge and six other co-conspirators, who had no affiliation with Harvard, were indicted in the case and pleaded guilty in 2025.

Prosecutors alleged that Lodge abused his position as manager of the medical school’s “Anatomical Gifts Program” to remove and dismember body parts from cadavers donated for medical research.

Harvard students use donated bodies to study anatomy and practice medical procedures. Once the university has completed its use of the cadavers, they are typically cremated, with the remains either returned to their families or buried at the university’s medical cemetery, according to the indictment.

Lodge and his wife were accused of selling the stolen body parts to buyers in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, the indictment states.

Lodge was sentenced to eight years in prison in December, according to the US Department of Justice, while his wife received a sentence of one year and one day.

Several civil lawsuits were filed against Harvard in 2023, alleging that the university had failed to act on Lodge’s misconduct for years before he was ultimately indicted.

Although a state court judge initially dismissed the cases, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court revived the lawsuits last fall.

By Jeyhun Aghazada