Pennsylvanian linked to LR body parts case gets probation

A Pennsylvania man connected to an Arkansas-based federal investigation into stolen body parts that were sold over the internet was sentenced to two years’ probation in Pennsylvania over state charges there of abuse of a corpse.

Jeremy Pauley, 41, of Thompson, Pa., appeared Tuesday before Cumberland County Judge Albert Masland in Carlisle, Pa., for sentencing. According to reports in the Harrisburg Patriot-News, Pauley pleaded guilty to the abuse of corpse charge in January in exchange for the dismissal of one count of dealing in the proceeds of unlawful activities and two counts of receiving stolen property.

Pauley is accused of buying body parts that were stolen from the Harvard Medical School morgue in Cambridge, Mass., and from a Little Rock mortuary contracted to perform cremation for the Anatomical Gift Program at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ College of Medicine.

Pauley is still awaiting sentencing in a Pennsylvania federal court on federal charges of interstate transportation of stolen property and conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property, to which he pleaded guilty in September.

Candace Chapman Scott, 36, of Little Rock was arrested on April 28, 2023, by the FBI on multiple conspiracy and fraud charges contained in a federal indictment returned by a grand jury in Little Rock on April 5, 2023.

Scott was employed by a Little Rock mortuary that had contracted with the UAMS program to provide cremation services for the medical school. A spokesperson for UAMS said last year that the medical school had terminated its contract with the mortuary after Scott’s activities came to light.

Scott, who was held in federal custody for nearly 10 months following her arrest, was allowed to leave federal custody in February under an agreement reached between Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Jegley and Scott’s attorney, Birc Morledge of Little Rock, that was approved by U.S. Magistrate Judge Benecia Moore.

The indictment against Scott indicated that she had allegedly received $10,975 from Pauley in 16 separate PayPal transactions for nine shipments of 20 boxes and packages of suspected human remains that were sent to two different addresses in Pennsylvania between Nov. 2, 2021, and July 9, 2022. She is accused of conspiring with and selling numerous body parts to Pauley from October 2021 to July 2022. Pauley was also accused of purchasing purloined body parts from the Harvard Medical School in Boston, for which the former morgue director and his wife, Cedric and Denise Lodge, and three others were indicted last June in the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

The macabre scheme began to unravel on June 14, 2022, with a complaint to police in the Pennsylvania municipality of East Pennsboro Township regarding buckets of body parts discovered at Pauley’s home. Pauley, a local artist and self-described “oddities collector,” was arrested on Aug. 18, 2022, by East Pennsboro Township police. Although Scott’s name came out in that investigation, she was not charged in Pennsylvania.

Scott, who has a trial date of July 7, is scheduled to appear before U.S. District Judge Brian Miller in federal court in Little Rock on April 25 for a plea hearing in the matter.