A former mortuary worker in Arkansas has pleaded guilty to selling 24 boxes of stolen body parts from medical school cadavers to a Pennsylvania man for roughly $11,000, the Associated Press reported on Thursday.
Candace Chapman Scott, 37, pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and one count of interstate transportation of stolen property.
Scott pleaded not guilty when she was accused in 2023 in the case. According to the story, Scott was one of several people indicted in what authorities described as a nationwide scheme to steal and sell human body parts from an Arkansas morgue and Harvard Medical School.
Scott worked at Arkansas Central Mortuary Services, where one of her responsibilities was to transport, cremate, and embalm remains
An indictment issued in 2023 accused the woman of arranging the transactions with Jeremy Pauley, a Pennsylvania man she met through a Facebook group. In September, Pauley pleaded guilty to charges related to the theft and selling of body parts from the Arkansas mortuary and Harvard.
Scott worked at Arkansas Central Mortuary Services, where one of her responsibilities was to transport, cremate, and embalm remains.
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences said that’s where the medical school sent the remains of cadavers that had been donated for medical students to examine.
According to last year’s indictment, Scott approached Pauley in October 2021 and offered to sell him remains from the medical school, which the mortuary was meant to cremate and return.
Scott was accused of selling fetuses, brains, hearts, lungs, genitalia, big portions of skin, and other body parts to Pauley over nine months. The indictment also claimed that at one time, Scott sold the remnants of a fetus for a discount, adding, “he’s not in great shape.”