In a shocking revelation, a former employee of Arkansas Central Mortuary Services, Candace Chapman Scott, admitted to her involvement in a nationwide scheme to pilfer and sell human body parts.
Scott, 37, confessed to selling 24 boxes of stolen body parts from medical school cadavers to a Pennsylvania man, Jeremy Pauley, for a sum close to $11,000.
Scott's admission of guilt came on Thursday in a federal court where she pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and one count of interstate transportation of stolen property. This is a significant shift from her initial plea of not guilty when she was indicted last year.
The indictment, unsealed last year, implicated Scott in orchestrating the transactions with Pauley, whom she had met through a Facebook group dedicated to "oddities." Pauley, too, admitted his guilt in September, acknowledging his role in the theft and sale of body parts from the Arkansas mortuary and Harvard Medical School.
Scott's role at Arkansas Central Mortuary Services involved transporting, cremating, and embalming remains. The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock confirmed that the medical school sent remains of cadavers, donated for medical students to study, to this mortuary.
Scott's attorney refrained from commenting on the matter on Thursday. As part of a plea agreement, federal prosecutors dropped 10 other wire and mail charges against Scott. However, she still faces severe penalties, including up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for the charge of transporting stolen property, and up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for the mail fraud charge.
The court has yet to schedule a date for sentencing.
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