A former Alabama mortuary employee was recently sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for illegally selling human remains, including fetal tissue, to an individual with extensive facial modifications, the New York Post reported.
Candace Chapman Scott, 37, sold human remains from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Anatomical Gift Program to Jeremy Lee Pauley from Pennsylvania, whom she met through a Facebook group that “openly discussed the sale of body parts,” according to Jonathan D. Ross, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
During her sentencing on Thursday, Judge Brian S. Miller described her crimes as “some of the worst I’ve ever seen” and sentenced Ross, from Little Rock, for transporting stolen human body parts across state lines and conspiring to commit mail fraud, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
She pleaded guilty to the charges last April.
Scott’s appalling actions- selling a skull, brain, arm, ear, several lungs, hearts, breasts, a belly button, testicles, and other body parts- took place between October 2021 and July 15, 2022, according to prosecutors.
Pauley, 42, a self-proclaimed “oddities collector,” paid her $10,625 for 24 boxes of body parts, which were part of a disturbing underground network of body snatching involving Harvard Medical School and the Arkansas mortuary.
When investigators searched Scott’s home, they discovered several body parts, and she admitted to collecting them while at her job.
The callous mortuary worker even told Pauley that the wrong ashes from a cremated body would be sent “to the parents of the dead fetuses,” prosecutors reported.
“Imagine learning that the cremated remains of your child given to you after their death were not actually those of your child, because instead the FBI recovered the body of that child in another state. That is the shocking truth that happened in this case for the family of “Baby Lux,” Ross, said in a press release.
“Baby Lux was named ‘Lux Siloam,’ which means ‘light sent,’ and now his light has illuminated an evil and dark underworld of criminals who engage in the trafficking of stolen human bodies and body parts,” he added.
At the sentencing, Doneysha Smith, Lux’s mother, told the judge she was devastated upon learning of the horrific crimes.
She is haunted at night by the thought of “my son being sent around in the mail like an Amazon package,” the Gazette reported.
Judge Miller, overcome with emotion, wept before issuing the sentence and apologized.
The FBI described the crime as “truly incomprehensible and detestable.”
“This sentencing does not undo the immeasurable harm inflicted on the victimized families, but the FBI and our partners will continue to work tirelessly to ensure justice is served for all,” said Alicia D. Corder, FBI Special Agent in Charge of Little Rock.
Meanwhile, Pauley is out on bond while awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty in Pennsylvania to conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen property, according to the Gazette.
