In the mid-1800s, Harvard Medical School had a reputation for being a “den of body snatchers.” And then, in November 1849, the school’s most prominent supporter, Dr. George Parkman, went missing. He was last seen walking into the medical school building. Several days later, a janitor, named Ephraim Littlefield found something strange in the lab of faculty me ... Show More
Jul 2023
27: Harvard’s Dirty Secret: Bejeweled Skulls and Grave Robbing
The manager of Harvard's Medical school was just indicted for selling human remains to oddities shops, but the history of Harvard's involvement in black market corpse dealings goes back over 250 years. Let's travel through the morgue, past the skeletons found in Harvard's walls, ... Show More
27m 23s
Apr 2024
TRAILER: Last Seen S4 'Postmortem': The Stolen Bodies of Harvard
<p>Hundreds of people donated their bodies to Harvard Medical School hoping to advance science and train the next generation of doctors. Meanwhile, prosecutors say that for years, the school's morgue manager treated it like a storefront, letting potential customers browse body pa ... Show More
2m 54s
May 2025
A Body in the Cellar: Hawley Harvey Crippen
When a boneless torso possibly belonging to a woman named Cora Turner is found in the cellar of a London home, the culprit seems almost obvious. Her husband, Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen, seems to have disappeared with his mistress. But the true answer isn’t that easy. Nearly a hund ... Show More
32m 20s
May 2024
Postmortem, Ep. 4: The anatomy lab
<p>As haunting as the Harvard morgue scandal is, you don't have to go back very far in history to find practices for sourcing bodies that would be shocking today. Reporter Ally Jarmanning finds that for more than a century, medical schools relied on grave robbing and body snatchi ... Show More
23m 47s
Mar 2023
The Case of the Pickled Corpse
On October 16th, 1920 the body of a missing bank employee is discovered within New Jersey’s sprawling pine barrens. His clothes are all wet, despite being some distance from the nearest stream, and he’s been robbed of over $40,000 in cash. Strangest of all his body seems to have ... Show More
1 h