Jeremy Pauley sentenced to probation in local stolen body parts case

Jeremy Lee Pauley, the Pennsylvania man who pleaded guilty last year to federal charges of participating in a sprawling conspiracy to buy and sell stolen human body parts, was sentenced to probation on Tuesday in a related state case for illegally possessing human flesh in his self-described “oddities” collection.

In January, Pauley, 41, pleaded guilty in state court to abuse of a corpse.

Cumberland County Judge Albert Masland sentenced him to two years’ probation.

“To many the facts are disturbing,” Masland said at Pauley’s sentencing, according to the Patriot-News. “To many more, they are abhorrent.”

Pauley still faces sentencing in a related federal case, in which he pleaded guilty to conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen property for trafficking of human body parts. Six others had been charged in that case.

The Inquirer reported last year how Pauley built an oddities business in Enola and how authorities shut it down.

Pauley was a well-known figure in the oddities world, part of a decentralized community whose members are interested in antiquities, quack medicine, the paranormal, natural history, and taxidermy. Aficionados buy and sell objects of interest at flea markets, oddities shops, and global Facebook groups. Many of the dealings are in strange — but benign — goods.

Pauley long described his interest in oddities as that of an educator committed to respectful study of the human body. But in August 2022, local police in Enola arrested him for dealing in stolen body parts.

Last June, federal authorities announced further charges against Pauley and others, detailing in one example how Pauley purchased human skin from the owner of a Massachusetts oddities shop, who had acquired it from an employee at the Harvard Medical School morgue. The federal complaint also detailed Facebook messages between Pauley and Candace Chapman Scott, a mortician based in Arkansas, about body parts she stole from the morgue where she worked. Over the course of a year, Pauley paid Scott thousands of dollars for the human remains.

In September, Pauley pleaded guilty in the federal case to conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen goods. In doing so, he admitted to participating in the national network and knowingly buying and selling human remains stolen from the Harvard Medical School and an Arkansas mortuary, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

“We are happy with the result in the state matter,” said Jonathan White, Pauley’s lawyer. Sophie Mae Vee, Pauley’s girlfriend, said the couple were relieved after the sentencing.

» READ MORE: Jeremy Lee Pauley allegedly sold stolen body parts from rural PA. Then his wife turned him in.

Pauley maintains a public Facebook page, where he updates his 6,000 followers on the oddities shop he and Vee are planning to open soon in Honesdale, Wayne County. Vee described the shop as a place to showcase and sell medical remains and antiquities.

“We’ve had quite a [lot] of people who have shown up while we’re renovating, to support Jeremy,” she said.