Mortuary worker bags 15 years in prison for selling body parts online to sicko covered in face tattoos and piercings
A mortuary employee has been handed a 15-year federal prison sentence for selling human body parts, including fetuses, to a bizarre collector adorned with face tattoos and piercings.
Candace Chapman Scott, 37, sold remains from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Anatomical Gift Program to Jeremy Lee Pauley, a heavily modified man from Pennsylvania whom she connected with through a Facebook group that facilitated discussions about body part sales, as stated by Jonathan D. Ross, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
During her sentencing, Judge Brian S. Miller described her actions as “some of the worst I’ve ever seen,” ultimately convicting Scott for transporting stolen human remains across state lines and conspiring to commit mail fraud, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Scott entered a guilty plea to the charges last April.
Her repugnant activities, which involved selling a skull, brain, arm, ear, multiple lungs, hearts, breasts, a belly button, and testicles, among other body parts, took place between October 2021 and July 15, 2022, as reported by prosecutors.
Pauley, 42, who identifies as an “oddities collector,” paid Scott $10,625 for 24 boxes of body parts, part of a disturbing underground network involved in body snatching from institutions like Harvard Medical School and the Arkansas mortuary.
During the investigation of Scott’s residence, authorities discovered multiple dismembered body parts, and she confessed to having placed them in bags while at work.
The callous morgue employee reportedly informed Pauley that incorrect ashes from a cremated body would be sent back “to the parents of the deceased fetuses,” according to prosecutors.
“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 heartbroken after hearing of the heinous crimes.
She’s haunted at night by “my son being sent around the mail like an Amazon package,” the Gazette reported.
Miller, meanwhile, sobbed before her sentencing and apologized.
The FBI called it a “truly incomprehensible and detestable crime.”
“This sentencing does not reverse the immeasurable damage that has been caused to the victimized families, however, the FBI and our partners will continuously work to ensure justice is served for all,” said FBI Little Rock Special Agent in Charge Alicia D. Corder.
For his part, Pauley is on bond awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty in Pennsylvania to conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen property, according to the Gazette.
