About this episode
The episode explores the scandal involving stolen body parts at Harvard Medical School and its connections to a broader network of human remains trading.
Hundreds of people have donated their bodies to Harvard Medical School, hoping to advance science and train the next generation of doctors. But in the basement of the nation's most prestigious medical institution, something went terribly wrong in recent years. In the five-part series Postmortem: The Stolen Bodies of Harvard , WBUR reporter Ally Jarmanning takes us deep into the macabre story of what happened, and how the elite university became a stop on a nationwide network of human remains trading. In Episode 1, police find buckets of body parts in a basement in Pennsylvania. We hear from the district attorney there and learn more about how this case connects to Harvard and Cedric Lodge, the morgue manager accused of stealing and selling donor body parts. An old classmate of Lodge's reflects on the man at the center of the scandal. And doctors who know Harvard well ponder how this could have happened — here, of all places. If you have questions, comments or tips about this story, you can reach us at LastSeen@wbur.org .
People in this episode
Host: Ally Jarmanning
Topics covered
- body donation
- medical ethics
- crime investigation
- human remains trading
- Harvard scandal
Keywords
- Harvard Medical School
- body parts
- crime
- Ally Jarmanning
- Cedric Lodge
- human remains
- investigation
- true crime
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Harvard Medical School, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Cedric Lodge, WBUR
Places: Pennsylvania
More episodes of Last Seen
- Postmortem, Update: The Sentences · December 23, 2025 · 34 min
- Introducing: What Remains from NHPR's Outside/In · January 29, 2025 · 37 min
- Postmortem, Ep. 5: A reckoning · May 1, 2024 · 29 min
- Postmortem, Ep. 4: The anatomy lab · May 1, 2024 · 24 min
- Postmortem, Ep. 3: The collectors · May 1, 2024 · 36 min
- Postmortem, Ep. 2: The victims · May 1, 2024 · 29 min
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