WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Jeremy Pauley, the central Pennsylvania man accused of illegally purchasing and selling human remains, is scheduled for a hearing today in the United State District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania in Williamsport.
Pauley is due in court at noon on Sept. 7 to answer to charges that he was involved in the theft and sale of body parts from medical facilities across the country, including the Harvard morgue.
According to a legal filing, Pauley plans to enter into a plea agreement in which he will plead guilty to two counts: conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property and interstate transportation of stolen property. The maximum sentence for the first count is five years, and the maximum imprisonment for the latter is 10 years. Both also carry a fine of $250,000 each and a maximum term of supervised release of three years.
Pauley was originally charged after an investigation that began on June 14. 2022, when police received a phone call regarding suspicious activity at a home on the 200 block of North Enola Road in Enola.
Police executed a search warrant at the home and collected three to five buckets containing suspected human remains, which were taken to the Cumberland County Coroner's Office and later transported to Dauphin County for testing, according to the complaint.
According to investigators, a forensic examiner later determined the buckets contained:
- human brains (2)
- human skin and human fat (6 pieces)
- a human heart
- a human kidney
- a human skull with hair
- human livers (2)
- a human trachea
- a human child's mandible with teeth
- human lungs (2)
Further investigation determined Pauley was purchasing some of the remains from a woman in Arkansas, whom police identified as Candace Scott.
Five other co-conspirators have been charged in the scheme, including James William Nott, from Kentucky, who sold remains on Facebook under the name "William Burke." The FBI found his home filled with humans remains when they searched it in July. An agent later wrote that the skulls were "decorated around the furniture."
Here is Pauley's entire criminal complaint: