In June 2023 over a hundred people got a letter from Harvard Medical School, what it said changed their lives forever. Head Number 7 tells a story about an FBI investigation, an underground network, and human remains being sold on social media.

Join geneticist and ancient DNA specialist Dr Turi King as she investigates the buying and selling of body parts, finds out what it really means to donate your body to science and asks who really owns our bodies once we're gone?

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For 15 years Cedric Lodge has run Harvard Medical School mortuary - he’s a quirky local legend with a licence plate that reads “GRIM-R”, and he even has a place in the Universities hall of fame, but all that changes when he’s arrested for the most macabre crimes imaginable...selling body parts of those who donated their bodies to the medical school. The customers? Online collectors of the macabre.

Geneticist and ancient DNA expert Professor Turi King explores this extraordinary story with lawyers, scientists and the family members of those who donated their bodies to Harvard Medical School while Cedric Lodge was running the morgue. Turi meets three victims: Amy Dasch, whose husband James was a brilliant biologist and innovator, who believed donating his body was the extension of his work as a scientist. Author and academic Jack Porter who lectures at Harvard, but now has to grapple with the fact his wife Raya may have been sold by Lodge. And Jennie Dunkley, who's husband Barry spent a lifetime working in law enforcement.

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What were Cedric’s customers doing with the body parts they purchased and how illegal is it? The dark world of human “oddity” collectors is revealed, and the price tags that come with a clandestine purchase.

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A woman in Pennsylvania is leaving her husband, as she packs up she goes down to his cellar - she’s been told not to go in there. She finds a bucket full of human organs, her discovery brings Cedric’s alleged network of collectors crashing down.

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Harvard writes a letter to the family members of those allegedly sold from their mortuary and the story hits the news. Who were the people behind the bodies donated to Harvard Medical School? The families take action.

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What rights do you have over your own corpse? If you donate your body to science what will actually become of it? As the families of the victims mobilise they learn about the legal grey areas that exist around the rights of a corpse.

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Turi looks at the complicated history of universities and human remains - from grave robbing to buying bones with your books. And learn about the broadcasting legend who ended up mixed up in a plot involving the mafia and the UK’s National Health Service.

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Are the bodies allegedly sold from the Harvard morgue priceless or worthless? Turi learns it’s an argument that’s key to the case. And finds out the surprising ways a donated body can help science and technology, from football helmets to ejector seats.

Listen to episodes of Head Number 7 exclusively and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App or Apple Podcasts. Start your free trial today by visiting https://wondery.com/links/head-number-7/

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