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Salem Shop Owner Agrees to Guilty Plea in Harvard Medical School Morgue Case

Prosecutors will seek a one-year sentence under a deal that lets her appeal a judge’s refusal to dismiss the case.

Overview

  • Katrina Maclean signed an Oct. 31 plea agreement in the Middle District of Pennsylvania to one count of interstate transport of stolen goods, heading off a trial that was set for this month.
  • The government will recommend 12 months of imprisonment, though the charge carries a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
  • Her plea is conditional, preserving her right to challenge Chief Judge Matthew Brann’s ruling that human remains can be treated as goods under the National Stolen Property Act.
  • Prosecutors say she bought dissected faces from former morgue manager Cedric Lodge and mailed human skin to a Pennsylvania buyer to be tanned into leather, with her Peabody shop later searched by the FBI.
  • Other defendants including Cedric and Denise Lodge, Jeremy Pauley, Joshua Taylor, and Candace Chapman-Scott have pleaded guilty in related cases, and investigators say some remains also came from an Arkansas crematorium.