A mortuary worker has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for selling body parts, including fetuses, to a disturbing collector with extensive face tattoos and piercings.
Candace Chapman Scott, 37, sold human remains from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Anatomical Gift Program to Jeremy Lee Pauley, a heavily pierced man from Pennsylvania. The two connected through a Facebook group that openly discussed the sale of body parts, according to Jonathan D. Ross, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
At her sentencing, Judge Brian S. Miller described Scott’s actions as “some of the worst I’ve ever seen” and sentenced her for transporting stolen human remains across state lines and conspiracy to commit mail fraud, as reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Scott pleaded guilty to the charges last April. Between October 2021 and July 2022, she sold various body parts, including a skull, brain, arm, ear, several lungs, hearts, breasts, a belly button, and testicles, among others.
Pauley, 42, a self-described “oddities collector,” paid Scott $10,625 for 24 boxes of body parts, which were part of a larger underground network trafficking stolen remains from Harvard Medical School and the Arkansas mortuary.
When investigators searched Scott’s home, they found additional body parts, and she confessed to taking them from her job. Shockingly, she even told Pauley that the wrong ashes from a cremated body would be returned to the parents of deceased fetuses.
One of the most disturbing revelations involved “Baby Lux,” a fetus whose ashes were mistakenly returned to the family, only for the FBI to recover the child’s body in another state. “Baby Lux was named ‘Lux Siloam,’ which means ‘light sent,’ and now his light has illuminated an evil and dark underworld of criminals who engage in the trafficking of stolen human bodies and body parts,” said Ross.
At the sentencing, Lux’s mother, Doneysha Smith, expressed her heartbreak, describing the trauma of learning that her son’s remains had been sold. “I’m haunted at night by my son being sent around the mail like an Amazon package,” she said.
Judge Miller, visibly emotional, apologized for the impact of Scott’s actions. The FBI called the crime “truly incomprehensible and detestable,” with Special Agent Alicia D. Corder emphasizing that while the sentencing cannot undo the harm caused to the victims’ families, justice will continue to be pursued.
Pauley is currently out on bond, awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen property.
