The wife of the former director of the Harvard Medical School morgue confessed to federal charges after investigators revealed she shipped stolen body parts, including hands, feet, and heads, to buyers. Denise Ludge, 64, of Goffstown, New Hampshire, pleaded guilty on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania to transporting stolen goods across state lines, according to court records.
Federal prosecutors last year announced charges against Denise, her husband Cedric, and five others in an alleged conspiracy involving a network of individuals across the country engaged in the purchase and sale of human remains stolen from Harvard University and a morgue in Arkansas. Prosecutors claimed that Denise negotiated online sales of several body parts including 24 hands, feet, 9 vertebrae, parts of skulls, 5 dissected human faces, and 2 dissected heads, according to "Pennlive.com."
Authorities stated that the body parts prepared for dissection, which were donated to the college, were taken between 2018 and early 2023 without the knowledge or consent of the college. A Pennsylvania man, Jeremy Polley of Thompson, awaits sentencing after pleading guilty last year to conspiracy and transporting stolen parts across state lines. Denise Ludge's attorney, Hope Louviere, stated in an interview with "WBUR" in February that her client's husband "was doing this and she kind of went along with it."
It is noted that the bodies donated to Harvard Medical School are used for educational or research purposes, and once they are no longer needed, they are usually cremated, with the ashes returned to the donor's family or buried in a cemetery.
