This week, the owner of a tattoo parlor in White Bear Lake was charged in connection with a cross-country plan to buy and sell stolen body parts. Before he was indicted, he talked about his collection in online posts.
Matthew R. Lampi, 52, of East Bethel, Minnesota, was charged with conspiracy and transporting stolen goods across state lines last week. According to court records, the stolen goods were human parts like brains, lungs, and stillborn babies.
His lawyer, Stephen Becker, said Friday night that his client hasn’t said anything about the accusations and hasn’t made a plea in the case.
Lampi was a tattoo that get to the point. Even though the business license is still valid, Google says that the studio at 927 Wildwood Road in White Bear Lake is “permanently closed.”
In an interview with Big Tattoo Planet, an online magazine, in 2008, Lampi said that he collected body parts. He said, “When I’m not tattooing or designing, I collect things.” He said some of the things in his collection were human skulls, a used make-up kit from a mortician, and a customer’s toe.
On the tattoo shop’s Facebook page, there are pictures of skulls that look like they are in the shop. One comment said, “Plenty to look at while you get a tattoo at get to the point tattoos!”
Another post had pictures of what looked like a human skull with a cemetery scene drawn on it and the words “Post Halloween painting by Matt Lampi.”
In the interview from 2008, Lampi said that he loves what he does as a tattoo artist. He said that he has been interested in tattooing since he was 14 and that he wants to be the “best tattooist” he can be.
Link to Pennsylvania
Court papers say that Lampi met Jeremy Pauley, 41, of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, because of both of their interest in collecting human skulls.
A woman who worked at a funeral home in Little Rock, Arkansas, is accused of stealing body parts from dead people whose bodies she was meant to cremate. Many of the bodies had been given to a nearby medical school so that it could study and teach with them.
Candace Chapman Scott is accused of selling Pauley body parts like genitalia, hearts, lungs, fake breasts, large pieces of skin, brains, arms, and more.
Many of the stolen bones are said to have been sold by Pauley to other people, including Lampi. Authorities say that Pauley and Lampi bought and sold things from each other online for more than $100,000 over a long period of time.
The tweet below verifies the news:
“When I am not tattooing or designing, I collect items,” he reportedly said in a 2008 magazine interview. https://t.co/mYaxic2j8A
— WDAY TV News (@WDAYnews) June 19, 2023
According to the indictment, Pauley wrote to Lampi on December 7, 2021, and said, “He had hearts and brains coming.” He also sent photos of the things that Scott had put on a show in her apartment. Lampi is said to have agreed to pay $4,000 for three things.
This is what the indictment said about the deals.
“Deal! According to court papers, Pauley told Lampi, “As soon as it all gets here, I’ll wrap it up and send it out.” The next day, Pauley sent Lampi more pictures and told him he had four more brains, three more hearts, a “perfect” lung, a penis, and a set of testicles.
Lampi asked Pauley on December 12, 2021, for an “update on parts?”
Pauley replied, “Some say delivery on Monday, and some say delivery on Thursday. IF things arrive on time, which hasn’t been happening with the mail, lol!”
Pauley wrote to Lampi on December 14: “I’m going to pack up your brain and heart tonight. Your arm isn’t here yet, but I’ll send it out as soon as it gets here!” He also sent the tracking number from USPS and said, “All set to go tomorrow!”
Lampi replied, “Nice!” “Parts right?”
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Stillborn baby
A few months later, on February 27, 2022, it is said that Lampi and Scott made a deal for Lampi to buy the body of a stillborn boy who would be burned at the funeral home where Scott worked. The accusation says that she said she had burned the baby but then sold it to Pauley for $300.
Pauley is said to have given Lampi five skulls in return for the stillborn baby’s remains and $1,550.
On April 17, 2022, Lampi is said to have told Pauley that he wanted more remains. He said, “Cool, I want faces, and we also talked about other things.”
Pauley contacted Lampi on May 27, 2022, and told him he had a pair of “smoker’s lungs” for sale, which he reportedly sold to Lampi for $1,900.
In June 2022, Pauley met with local cops, who told him they had heard he was selling dead bodies.
Lampi asked, “Hey, what did the police say?”
Pauley said that he had been asked about the human remains, and that “in the end, the only thing that mattered was that nothing was proven to have been stolen from a grave or a morgue.” He then added an emoji of a smiley face.
The accusation says that Lampi gave Pauley almost $9,000 in cash. On his end, Pauley gave the East Bethel man more than $119,000. Between September 2021 and June 2022, the guys sent about 15 packages back and forth from Pennsylvania to Minnesota.
Scott and Pauley have both said that they are innocent.
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Harvard School of Medicine
Federal officials in Pennsylvania said this week that the indictment also names several other people, including a former manager at the Harvard Medical School morgue and his wife.
Court papers say that Cedric Lodge, 55, of Goffstown, New Hampshire, stole parts of cadavers that had been dissected and given to the school. The scheme ran from 2018 to early 2023.
Authorities say that Lodge sometimes took the body parts, such as heads, brains, skin, and bones, back to his home, where he lived with his wife, Denise, 63. He also mailed some of the remains to buyers. Lodge is said to have let buyers come to the hospital and pick out the body parts they wanted to buy.
Along with Lampi, Scott, Pauley, and the Lodges, two other people were charged with plotting and transporting stolen goods across state lines. They were Katrina Maclean, 44, of Salem, Massachusetts, and Joshua Taylor, 46, of West Lawn, Pennsylvania.
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