ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE: A devastated woman, whose parents donated their bodies to Harvard, is now demanding her mother's remains back after learning that her father’s remains were sold on the black market. In an interview, Darlene Lynch said she “wanted to throw up” after finding out that her father, Nick Pichowicz’s remains were allegedly stolen and sold by Cedric Lodge, a former manager at the Harvard Medical School morgue.
The 55-year-old Lodge, his wife Denise, and five other individuals have been indicted for allegedly selling human remains stolen from mortuaries at the Ivy League school and the University of Arkansas. According to prosecutors, Lodge stole “heads, brains, skin and bones” from cadavers that were donated to the prestigious university and sold them on the black market from 2018 until March of this year. He even took the dissected body parts to his home in Goffstown where he and his wife sold them to buyers in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
Who were Nick and Joan Pichowicz?
After learning about the trafficking, the Pichowicz family called twice to determine if their dad was on the list of stolen remains. “We wanted to make sure it was right. We were hoping it wasn’t,” Lynch told People. The couple's lone son, Nicholas Pichowicz, also expressed the family was “shocked, sad, and angry” about what had happened. “We feel extremely betrayed by these individuals and the school,” he said. The family revealed that their parents Nick and Joan, who were married for 66 years, were a united team, who worked together to raise five kids.
They both were retired law enforcement officers. While Nick was a retired deputy sheriff in Rockingham County, his wife previously worked as a police officer in their hometown of Plaistow. “Her door was always open to help anybody, for any reason,” Lynch said of his mother. As per his family, Nick dropped out of school in the eighth grade to work on his family’s farm and later got his pilot’s license to buy and fly his own 4-passenger Stinson airplane. Before he died in 2019, he requested that his remains be donated to Harvard Medical School for scientific study and teaching. Earlier this year, Joan also died in March and followed her husband to the Harvard Medical School's morgue.
'We just want some relief'
Lynch said that she had contacted the school to find out how to have her mother's remains returned, but had not received a response. “We’re trying to get her back,” the devastated sister said, adding “We just want some relief — relief in getting my mom back. We just want to bury her next to my dad.” Lynch claimed that the family no longer believes in the cause that her parents formerly supported. “Harvard should’ve had more security, oversight, and protocols. I mean, we give them the bodies of our loved ones, thinking, trusting that it’s for the good,” she continued.
Lynch apparently learned about the trafficking after seeing a local news article following the release of the indictment on Wednesday. “Even now I get this nauseous feeling. When I first heard about it, I wanted to throw up. It’s just sickening that people can do this. It’s crazy, messed up, unimaginable,” she said of learning what happened to her father. Lynch claimed that the family is suffering from dual grief as a result of their parents' unfulfilled last desires and their deaths. “We want to get his parts back, whatever that means. And the ashes we have — are they him?” she added.
