Harvard CEO accused of selling body parts
The head of a morgue associated with Harvard Medical School has been charged with removing body parts without permission and selling them.
The 55-year-old was shot on May 6. He was charged with trafficking in stolen remains, according to a statement from the attorney general’s office covering Pennsylvania’s Central District.
The bodies are donated to Harvard Medical School for use in education, teaching, and research. When no longer needed, they are cremated and the ashes returned to the donors’ families or buried.
In addition to the 55-year-old man, the man’s 63-year-old wife has also been charged in the case. Five other people, according to the indictment, participated in a “national network” where human remains were bought and sold. This was supposed to take place from 2018 to 2022.
The 55-year-old was accused of taking parts of his body, including the head, brains, skin and bones, which he and his wife, according to the indictment, sent in the mail to buyers. According to the indictment, the couple let buyers into the mortuary to choose what they wanted to buy.
It was alleged in the indictment that one of the purchasers sent human skin to another of those involved in order to get that person to “tan the skin into skin”.
“We are horrified that something horrible might happen on our campus,” said the medical school president, George Daley, and the chair of medical education, Edward Hundert, in a joint statement.
(NTB)
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