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?

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 wondery.com/links/head-number-seven

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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.

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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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.

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/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.