Ex-mortuary worker accused of selling $11,000 worth of body parts

An Arkansas woman who worked for a mortuary is being accused of selling stolen body parts to a man for almost $11,000, according to court documents.

Candace Chapman Scott, 36, allegedly sold 20 boxes of body parts to a man she met in a Facebook group about “oddities,” read the indictment dated April 5, which was unsealed in federal court in Little Rock on Friday. 

“This is one of the most bizarre investigations I have encountered in my thirty-three years as a prosecutor,” Cumberland County District Attorney Seán M. McCormack said last year. “Just when I think I have seen it all, a case like this comes around.”

Scott was in charge of transporting, cremating, and embalming human remains for Arkansas Central Mortuary Services. The funeral home was also used by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences to prepare cadavers that had been donated to the school for medical study. 

In 2021, Scott allegedly approached Jeremy Lee Pauley, 40, from Pennsylvania, offering to sell him body remains. “Just out of curiosity, would you know anyone in the market for a fully intact, embalmed brain?” Scott asked the man in a Facebook message. 

Over the next several months, Pauley paid Scott around $16,975 for body parts, including fetuses, brains, hearts, lungs, genitalia, large pieces of skin, and other body parts, the indictment reads. 

Police officers in East Pennsboro, Pennsylvania received a complaint on June 14, 2022, about possible human body parts being sold on Facebook. The complaint led police to Pauley’s home. 

Scott pleaded guilty to 12 counts, including conspiracy to commit mail fraud, mail fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property, and interstate transportation of stolen property.

She is currently in jail and has a hearing on Tuesday. Pauley is also facing several state charges. 

“I think that the facts … underlying the indictment and in the indictment are uniquely egregious and objectionable and we believe there is going to be some significant public outcry as a result of this,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Jegley.