Mortuary Worker Admits Selling 24 Boxes of Body Parts that She Took from Cadavers
Candace Chapman Scott, 37, pleaded guilty to transporting body parts across state lines and conspiring to commit mail fraud
Pulaski County Jail
Candace Chapman ScottA former mortuary worker in Arkansas has pleaded guilty to selling stolen body parts.
Candace Chapman Scott, 37, pleaded guilty to transporting body parts across state lines and conspiring to commit mail fraud, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas announced Thursday.
Scott was initially charged in April 2023 with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of mail fraud, and two counts of interstate transportation of stolen property.
Authorities said Scott was working at a mortuary service provider that transported, embalmed and cremated remains for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, which received donated cadavers through the Anatomical Gift Program.
Authorities said that Scott, while working at the mortuary, contacted a Pennsylvania man on a Facebook group about “oddities” on Oct. 28, 2021.
According to a plea agreement obtained by PEOPLE, Scott “introduced herself as a mortician at a trade service mortuary, explaining that the mortuary was contracted through UAMS in Little Rock to cremate medical cadavers."
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Scott then asked the man “if he knew anyone interested in purchasing an embalmed human brain,” per the plea agreement.
Authorities said the two then “negotiated the purchase of human body parts” that “Scott stole from UAMS.”
In total, Scott shipped 24 boxes containing stolen body parts from Arkansas to Pennsylvania through the U.S. Postal Service from Oct. 31, 2021, to July 15, 2022, per the plea agreement.
She received $10,625 in payment for the remains.
The FBI executed a search warrant on Scott’s Little Rock home on July 13, 2022 and found numerous stolen body parts in boxes and trash bags, including a human brain, heart, skullcap, kidneys, livers, hands and a female pelvis with femurs.
Scott admitted to agents that she received the payments for the body parts through PayPal.
She has yet to be sentenced.
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