Last Seen

Hundreds of people donated their bodies to Harvard Medical School hoping to advance science and train the next generation of doctors. Meanwhile, prosecutors say that for years, the school's morgue manager treated it like a storefront, letting potential customers browse body parts and bringing home skin and brains to be shipped out to people across the country. Last year's arrest of the morgue manager, Cedric Lodge, exposed a nationwide network of human remains swapping that ensnared Harvard and lay bare the school’s broken promises to donors. In this five-part narrative series, host and reporter Ally Jarmanning explains what happened at Harvard, talks to donor families about their interrupted grief, and meets with human remains collectors to find out why they’re interested in this macabre field. We explore the dark origins of our nation’s medical schools. And we try to answer the haunting questions that drive the series: How should we treat the dead? And who gets to decide? All 5 episodes coming soon. Follow Last Seen wherever you get your podcasts. Resources: Read more about WBUR's reporting on the case here.

Hundreds of people have donated their bodies to Harvard Medical School, hoping to advance science and train the next generation of doctors. But in the basement of the nation's most prestigious medical institution, something went terribly wrong in recent years. In the five-part series Postmortem: The Stolen Bodies of Harvard, WBUR reporter Ally Jarmanning takes us deep into the macabre story of what happened, and how the elite university became a stop on a nationwide network of human remains trading. In Episode 1, police find buckets of body parts in a basement in Pennsylvania. We hear from the district attorney there and learn more about how this case connects to Harvard and Cedric Lodge, the morgue manager accused of stealing and selling donor body parts. An old classmate of Lodge's reflects on the man at the center of the scandal. And doctors who know Harvard well ponder how this could have happened — here, of all places. If you have questions, comments or tips about this story, you can reach us at LastSeen@wbur.org.

When news of the Harvard morgue scandal went viral, no one was hit harder than the families of people who had donated their bodies for study at the nation's most prestigious medical school. As if grieving the loss of a loved one wasn't enough, now there was this: the specter of a family member's body dismembered and sold to strangers for profit. In Episode 2 of Postmortem: The Stolen Bodies of Harvard, reporter Ally Jarmanning talks with Amber Haggstrom, whose mother donated her body to Harvard after death. We hear Haggstrom's outrage and raw emotion as she learns the news — and her frustration at Harvard's lack of answers as to how it failed to protect her mother's body. We hear, too, from the attorney representing the families, and trying to hold Harvard accountable. If you have questions, comments or tips about this story, you can reach us at LastSeen@wbur.org.

Who are the people buying this stuff anyway? People who collect human remains don’t see it as gross. In fact, these collectors connect and communicate openly on social media. In Episode 3 of Postmortem: The Stolen Bodies of Harvard, reporter Ally Jarmanning meets Jeremy Pauley, the Pennsylvania man with a tattooed eye whose arrest unravels this whole case. Jarmanning dines in the home of a Delaware couple with a house full of skeletons; they call themselves “rescuers” of human remains. And she introduces us to Mike Drake, a New York City collector. Through all these conversations, it becomes clear: There's no solid ethical line in this world of remains collectors; everyone is making up their own rules. If you have questions, comments or tips about this story, you could reach us at LastSeen@wbur.org.

As haunting as the Harvard morgue scandal is, you don't have to go back very far in history to find practices for sourcing bodies that would be shocking today. Reporter Ally Jarmanning finds that for more than a century, medical schools relied on grave robbing and body snatching to supply anatomical dissection classes. In Episode 4 of Postmortem: The Stolen Bodies of Harvard, she talks to medical school professors and historians about this grim reality, shedding light on how new the notion of ethics in this field is. And we hear from an FBI agent who's investigated the world of body brokers. If you have questions, comments or tips about this story, you can reach us at LastSeen@wbur.org.

In Episode 5 of Postmortem: The Stolen Bodies of Harvard, reporter Ally Jarmanning digs deeper into the "legitimate" realm of body-parts collecting ⁠— museums ⁠— and asks the burning question: How different is this from the world of Jeremy Pauley in his basement or Cedric Lodge seizing a financial opportunity at Harvard's morgue. At the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, she takes us through displays of skeletons and sometimes-troubling human specimens. What comes up here and at museums around the country ⁠— did the people who used to belong to these bodies ever imagine themselves in a jar, or on a shelf? Did they give permission for decades of gawking? After all this reporting, Jarmanning examines the ethics of it all, probing how we should treat the dead, and who gets to decide. And she returns us to Harvard, where hardly anyone, except Lodge, has been held to account. If you have questions, comments or tips about this story, you can reach us at LastSeen@wbur.org.

The third season of Last Seen, coming November 2022, is a collection of personal and political mysteries from public radio storytellers that you won't want to miss.

WBUR senior arts reporter Amelia Mason is on the hunt to solve a mystery that has been haunting her for years: why are black raspberries so hard to find? The answer takes us through grocery stores, farms, foraging expeditions, and Amelia's own childhood backyard.

For years, WBUR senior arts and culture reporter Andrea Shea drove by an old, mysterious factory in Cambridge, Mass. To her surprise, it turned to be the last vestige of a 20th century candy hub called Confectioner's Row. Manufacturing jobs dried up, and only one factory, Cambridge Brands, remains. In this episode of Last Seen, Andrea walks us through the history of Confectioner's Row and meets face-to-face with the CEO of Cambridge Brands — who is touted as a real life Willy Wonka.

Mashed potatoes, corn and ground beef. These aren't the ingredients for shepherd's pie, but for Chinese pie, a traditional and very famous French Canadian dish. WBUR producer Amanda Beland, grew up eating Chinese pie, or pâté chinois, with her French Canadian family. But the pie's origins have always been a culinary mystery. In this episode of Last Seen, Amanda talks to historians and culinary experts to reveal where pâté chinois comes from, and how it might have gotten that name.

This week, we're bringing you another food-related mystery - this time from our friendly neighbors to the north, Vermont Public and Brave Little State producer Josh Crane. If you go out to eat right now, you’re likely to run into restaurants that are struggling because they’re missing a crucial ingredient: staff. In this episode, Josh sets out to solve the mystery of the COVID-era restaurant industry exodus, by telling the story of one Vermont diner, The Guilty Plate. The full version of this story was originally published on December 1, 2022 on Vermont Public's podcast, Brave Little State.

On a sunny Saturday in 2016, Benine Timothee left her house to visit a friend who lived close by and never returned. She had lived in the United States for only three months when she was shot and killed outside a corner store in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood. No arrests have been made, and there are no suspects in the case. For six years, her family and others have been haunted by the question — what really happened to their mother, wife, and friend on that October afternoon in 2016? In this three-part series for Last Seen, independent investigative reporter Shannon Dooling joins Benine's family members on their quest for truth and information. Together, they explore what it means to go on living, after losing a loved one so suddenly, with no explanation. And if it's possible to ever find peace, in the absence of closure. In this first episode, we learn about Benine's life in Haiti, her family's hopes and dreams of a new life in Boston, and why her husband and children feel forgotten by law enforcement.

On a sunny Saturday in 2016, Benine Timothee left her house to visit a friend who lived close by and never returned. She had lived in the United States for only three months when she was shot and killed outside a corner store in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood. No arrests have been made, and there are no suspects in the case. This is the second episode of our three-part series, A Family's Peace, reported by independent investigative journalist Shannon Dooling. In part two, we learn just how hard it has been for Benine's family to get any  details surrounding her death, and why. Despite the hurdles, Shannon tracks down new insights to share with Benine's family members. She also dives into a theory that has haunted Boston's Haitian community for years about who really killed Benine.

On a sunny Saturday in 2016, Benine Timothee left her house to visit a friend who lived close by and never returned. She had lived in the United States for only three months when she was shot and killed outside a corner store in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood. No arrests have been made, and there are no suspects in the case. This is the third and final episode of our three-part series, A Family's Peace, reported by independent investigative journalist Shannon Dooling. Benine's homicide is still unsolved, and Boston police haven't offered updates to her family in years. In Part III, Shannon talks to the Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney to get the insider scoop on how unsolved homicide cases are handled. Feeling left behind, Andre, Benine's widower, continues to search for answers and workarounds that don't involve law enforcement. Finally, we hear from Benine's children, Jephte and Nelissa, about how much their lives have changed since their mother's death, and how the family goes on living, with or without closure.

Introducing Beyond All Repair, a new WBUR podcast hosted by Amory Sivertson. This series tells the story of a murder, but also the woman who was accused of that murder, Sophia. Sophia was newly married and six months pregnant when she was charged with murdering her mother-in-law in 2002. She gave birth to a son in jail that she hasn’t seen since, and for the last three years, she’s been telling me her story in hopes of getting justice for her mother-in-law, of having a chance of meeting her son, and of finally being believed. This is the first chapter of Beyond All Repair. Episode 2 is already waiting for you. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

WBUR’s popular true-crime podcast returns, with mysterious tales about people, places, ashes, planets, endangered species, feelings and much more.

The new season, coming out Feb. 1, has 10 new true-crime mysteries that you don’t want to miss.

In 1964, Jack Murphy, or "Murph the Surf," pulled off the biggest jewel heist in New York City history only to be caught 48 hours later. Amory Sivertson traces the enigmatic life of this folk hero and examines why men like him continue to be idolized.

Freeports are the most expensive and secretive warehouses in the world, which now hide some of the world’s cultural treasures from the public eye. Join Ben Brock Johnson as he traces the path of one lost Modigliani painting, "Seated Man with a Cane," and attempts to catch a glimpse inside these high-tech storage dungeons.

Every school kid learns that there are exactly eight planets in our solar system. But what if we told you there might be a ninth? A world that may be six times the size of Earth and take 12,000 years to orbit the Sun. The only thing is, while some scientists are convinced Planet Nine exists, no one has seen it. Yet. Science journalist and WBUR producer Dean Russell (Endless Thread) traces the lives of two astronomers, separated by a century, bound by their thirst for finding that missing planet. This Last Seen story of obsession reveals the unexpected reward when one astronomer gets it wrong — and the fallout when another gets it, seemingly, right.