A former mortuary worker in Arkansas has admitted to stealing parts of corpses and trying to sell them.
On Thursday, the US attorney for the eastern district of Arkansas announced that 37-year-old Candace Chapman Scott of Little Rock, Arkansas, had pleaded guilty to transporting stolen body parts across state lines and conspiring to commit mail fraud.
According to prosecutors helming the unusually macabre case, Scott worked at a mortuary services provider from October 2021 to 15 July 2022. Local news outlets report that Scott was employed at Arkansas Central Mortuary Service and that her job was to transport, cremate and embalm remains.
During her time at the mortuary, Scott stole human body parts and fetal remains, in turn selling them as well as arranging for them to be transported out of state to the purchaser, the US attorney’s office said.
According to an indictment reviewed by the Associated Press, Scott carried out her transactions with Jeremy Pauley, a 41-year-old man from Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, whom she met through a Facebook group dedicated to “oddities”.
Last September, the US attorney’s office for Pennsylvania’s central federal district announced that Pauley had pleaded guilty to conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen property. Prosecutors added that Pauley “admitted to his role in a nationwide network of individuals who bought and sold human remains stolen from Harvard medical school and an Arkansas mortuary”.
In the press release, the US attorney’s office for the middle district of Pennsylvania also named Scott as a figure in the case.
Scott was indicted last April and charged with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of mail fraud and two counts of interstate transportation of stolen property. In exchange for her guilty plea, the rest of her charges were dismissed, according to Thursday’s statement from the US attorney for eastern Arkansas.
Transporting stolen property across state lines is punishable by a maximum of 10 years of imprisonment, no less than three years of supervised release and a maximum fine of $250,000, the statement added. In regards to Scott’s mail fraud charges, the maximum penalty is no more than 20 years of imprisonment, no less than three years of supervised release and a maximum fine of $250,000.
A judge is expected to sentence Scott at a later date.
• The headline of this article was amended on 28 April 2024 because an earlier version mistakenly referred to Arizona rather than to Arkansas.
