23 July 2023 , 20:28
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A man has been arrested after 40 skulls were recovered from a Kentucky apartment, used with other body parts for decoration.
James Nott lived in an apartment in Louisville in which other human bones including spinal cords, femurs and hip bones were also found amid an FBI investigation into human remains stolen and trafficked from the Harvard Medical School Morgue.
Nott is reported to have decorated furniture with the remains, including one skull placed on a mattress where he slept and another given a head scarf.
He has been charged with unlawful possession of a firearm as a prohibited person after he was booked into the Oldham County jail.
Reports from WGN-TV say that when Nott was asked by agents if anyone was inside, he replied "Only my dead friends."
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Agents also found a Harvard Medical School and multiple firearms including an AK-47, dummy grenades and two plates of body armour.
FBI agents obtained a search warrant on Tuesday in connection to the investigation after federal investigators received a tip that there were potential remains at another home in Pennsylvania.
Other bones including spinal cords, femurs and hip bones were found (Getty Images)At the home of Jeremy Pauley, officers found human remains including skin and other organs. Investigators allege Pauley sold and shipped the body parts to Nott, leading to the FBI warrant.
The Bureau believes Pauley allegedly bought the remains from a woman who worked in a mortuary in Little Rock, Arkansas.
According to PayPal records, she sold remains including two foetal specimens, hearts, brains and lungs.
Pauley gave investigators information on an alleged network of people involved in the sale and transportation of human remains.
This includes Cedric Lodge, 55, a former Harvard employee alleged to have stolen organs and part of cadavers originally donated to Harvard for research.
Another person facing criminal charges, Katrina Maclean of Salem, Massachusetts, owned a store that sells “creations that shock the mind” along with “creepy dolls, oddities and bone art,” according to the store’s social media page.
An indictment charges Lodge; his wife, Denise; Maclean; Joshua Taylor, of West Lawn, Pennsylvania; and Mathew Lampi, of East Bethel, Minnesota, with conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen goods.
The same bodies were then due to be cremated between 2018 and 2022. Harvard called the alleged crimes "An abhorrent betrayal."
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Lodge was reportedly fired on May 6.
“Some crimes defy understanding,” said United States Attorney Gerard M Karam.
“The theft and trafficking of human remains strikes at the very essence of what makes us human," he added.
"It is particularly egregious that so many of the victims here volunteered to allow their remains to be used to educate medical professionals and advance the interests of science and healing.
"For them and their families to be taken advantage of in the name of profit is appalling.”
There are no federal criminal statutes that deal with the mishandling or sale of human remains, and in most states, the sale of human remains is not illegal.