According to a report on August 19, Harvard University has agreed to pay $53 million (approximately 356 million yuan) to settle a lawsuit filed by families who accused the institution of improperly handling donated bodies at its medical school.
The settlement agreement was submitted to a Boston court on the 17th, bringing an end to litigation against Harvard Medical School. The case stemmed from former morgue manager Cedric Lodge, who admitted to stealing and selling human remains from the school on the black market.
Harvard University, located in Massachusetts, is a premier private research institution often celebrated as the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and a proud member of the Ivy League. Its medical school ranks first globally in medicine according to the 2026 QS World University Rankings by subject.
Lodge, now 58, allegedly removed “heads, brains, skin, and bones” from cadavers and sold them online, a practice that reportedly ran from 2018 to 2021.
Lodge and six other accomplices were all indicted and pleaded guilty in 2025.
Prosecutors alleged that Lodge abused his position as manager of the medical school’s “anatomical gift program” to dismember bodies donated for medical research.
According to the indictment, Harvard students used these donated bodies for medical research and clinical practice. After the school was done with them, the remains were typically cremated, with ashes returned to families or buried in the university’s medical cemetery.
The indictment stated that Lodge and his wife sold body parts to buyers in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
Per a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, “Lodge sometimes allowed others to enter the Harvard Medical School morgue to inspect remains and pick out parts they wanted to purchase.”
Justice Department sources revealed that Lodge was sentenced to eight years in prison last December, while his wife received a sentence of one year and one day.
Katrina MacLean from Salem, Massachusetts, and Joshua Taylor from West Lawn, Pennsylvania, were charged with purchasing these body parts.
According to charging documents, in October 2020, MacLean bought a piece of dissected skin for $600, intending to “tan it into leather.”
Taylor was accused of making 39 electronic payments totaling nearly $40,000 to Mrs. Lodge over four years for stolen body parts. The indictment included a chilling detail: a $1,000 PayPal payment noted “head number 7.”
U.S. Attorney Gerard M. Karam said in a statement: “Some crimes are hard to comprehend. The theft and trafficking of human remains strikes at the very core of what makes us human.”
Multiple civil lawsuits against Harvard were filed in 2023, alleging years of mismanagement. Though initially dismissed by a state court judge, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court revived the cases last fall.
On the 17th, Harvard and the plaintiffs jointly asked the court to approve the class-action settlement.
In a joint letter, Dean George Daley of the medical school and Bernard Chang, dean of medical education at Harvard Medical School, wrote: “Lodge’s crimes were morally reprehensible and inconsistent with the standards Harvard and Harvard Medical School should uphold in treating anatomical donors and their loved ones.”
The letter also announced that starting in the 2027-2028 academic year, the medical school will establish an annual scholarship to “express gratitude and honor all anatomical donors.”
