A shocking case out of Alabama has left many horrified after a mortuary worker was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for selling body parts, including fetuses, to a collector with a disturbing affinity for human remains. Candace Chapman Scott, 37, was found guilty of selling human remains from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Anatomical Gift Program to Jeremy Lee Pauley, a Pennsylvania man covered in tattoos and piercings, whom she met on a Facebook group dedicated to the sale of body parts.
During her sentencing, Judge Brian S. Miller described her crimes as some of the worst he had ever seen. Scott was convicted of transporting stolen human body parts out of the state and conspiracy to commit mail fraud. Her despicable actions involved selling a variety of body parts, including a skull, brain, arm, ear, lungs, hearts, breasts, belly button, and testicles, among others, between October 2021 and July 2022.
Pauley, a self-proclaimed “oddities collector,” paid Scott $10,625 for 24 boxes of body parts, which were part of a larger underground network of body snatching that involved institutions like Harvard Medical School and the Arkansas mortuary. When investigators searched Scott’s home, they found several body parts, and she confessed to bagging them at her workplace.
One of the most disturbing aspects of this case was Scott’s callous disregard for the families of the deceased. She informed Pauley that the wrong ashes from a cremated body would be returned to the parents of deceased fetuses. The FBI recovered the body of a deceased child named “Baby Lux,” whose remains had been swapped with those of another child, causing immeasurable pain to the victimized families.
During the sentencing, Lux’s mother, Doneysha Smith, expressed her heartbreak at the heinous crimes committed against her child. She shared her nightmares of her son being treated like an Amazon package, sent around through the mail. Scott, too, showed remorse and tearfully apologized before her sentencing, while the FBI labeled the crime as “truly incomprehensible and detestable.”
As for Pauley, he is currently out on bond awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty in Pennsylvania to conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen property. The case has shed light on a dark underworld of criminals engaged in the trafficking of stolen human bodies and body parts. While the sentencing of Scott may not reverse the damage caused to the victimized families, the FBI and its partners are committed to ensuring that justice is served for all involved.
