A Minnesota tattoo artist and human remains aficionado was sentenced to 15 months in prison for adding the stolen corpse of a stillborn baby boy to his collection, among other smuggled body parts, USA Today reports. Matthew Lampi, 50, the longtime owner of a tattoo parlor outside Minneapolis, pleaded guilty to buying, trading and selling stolen human remains, including “hearts, brains, an arm and a pair of ‘smoker’s lungs,’” according to federal court filings in Pennsylvania. He is the latest to be sentenced in a network of human remains smugglers that stretched from the morgue of the Harvard University Medical School to an Arkansas mortuary. Thousands of dollars and numerous types of human body parts were exchanged in the trafficking ring between 2018 and 2022, said federal indictments. Lampi paid $1,550 and traded five human skulls for Lux, the stillborn baby boy that was stolen from an Arkansas mortuary. Collectors tend to call the body parts as well as remains of non-human specimens "oddities."
“After 40 years doing this business, I thought I saw it all,” said Joe D’Andrea, Lampi’s attorney. “I didn’t know there was an underworld of people who collected oddities and a lot of the oddity collection is body parts.” D'’Andrea added: “There are people who - for whatever their reasons are - desire to collect them. The problem this case had was they were stolen and that’s where the crime came in.” Chief Judge Matthew Brann ordered Lampi to pay a $2,000 fine and $1,700 in restitution to Lux’s mother. Candace Chapman Scott, the Arkansas woman who stole Lux’s remains, pleaded guilty and is expected to be sentenced next week. Jeremy Pauley, a Pennsylvania resident who bought Lux from Scott for $300 to sell to Lampi also pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing. Pauley sourced body parts from Cedric Lodge, who managed Harvard’s morgue.
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