Minnesota tattoo shop owner talked about buying and selling body parts before indictment
ST. PAUL -- The owner of a White Bear Lake tattoo parlor charged this week in connection with a cross-country scheme to buy and sell stolen body parts was open about his collection in online posts before his indictment.
Matthew R. Lampi, 52, of East Bethel, Minnesota, was indicted last week on charges of conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen goods: human remains including brains, lungs and stillborn babies, according to court records.
His attorney, Stephen Becker, said Friday night that his client has not pleaded in the case and he had no statement to make regarding the allegations.
Lampi owned Get to the Point Tattoos. Although the business license is still active, Google now shows the studio, in the Wildwood Shopping Center at 927 Wildwood Road in White Bear Lake, as “permanently closed.”
In a 2008 interview with an online magazine, Big Tattoo Planet, Lampi is quoted talking about collecting body parts. He said when not tattooing or designing, “I collect items,” adding that his collection included “human skulls, a mortician’s make-up kit (previously used of course) and a customer’s toe.”
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The tattoo studio’s Facebook page includes photos of skulls that are apparently on display in the shop.
One post said, “Plenty to look at while you get a tattoo at get to the point tattoos!”
Another post was photographs of what appeared to be a human skull with a cemetery scene painted upon it labeled, “Post Halloween painting by Matt Lampi.”
In the 2008 interview, Lampi said he is passionate about his work as a tattoo artist. He said he has been interested in the work since he was 14 years old and expressed his desire to be the “best tattooist” he could be.
Pennsylvania connection
According to court documents, Lampi’s interest in collecting human skulls brought him into contact with Jeremy Pauley, 41, of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.
A woman who worked at a Little Rock, Arkansas, mortuary allegedly stole body parts from cadavers she was supposed to cremate. Many of the bodies had been donated to be used for research and educational purposes by a nearby medical school.
Candace Chapman Scott is accused of taking body parts including genitals, hearts, lungs, fake breasts, swaths of skin, brains, arms and more and selling them to Pauley.
Pauley allegedly sold many of the stolen remains to other people, including Lampi. Authorities say the two men, Pauley and Lampi, bought and sold from each other over an extended period of time and exchanged more than $100,000 in online payments.
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According to the indictment, around Dec. 7, 2021, Pauley wrote to Lampi and said “he had hearts and brains coming” and sent photographs of the items that Scott had displayed in her apartment. Lampi allegedly agreed to buy three items for $4,000.
The indictment gave the following details of the transactions.
“Deal! Soon as it all gets here I’ll wrap it up and send it out,” Pauley told Lampi, according to court documents. The next day, Pauley sent Lampi more photographs and said he had four more brains, three hearts, a “perfect” lung, penis and a set of testicles.
On Dec. 12, 2021, Lampi asked Pauley for an “update on parts?”
Pauley responded, “Some say Monday delivery, some say Thursday delivery. IF things show up on time with how the mail has been lol!”
On Dec.14, Pauley wrote Lampi: “Going to pack up your brain and heart tonight, arm isn’t here yet but I’ll sent it out soon as it arrives!” He also sent the USPS tracking information and said, “All set to head out tomorrow!”
Lampi wrote back: “Nice! Parts correct?”
Stillborn baby
A few months later, on Feb. 27, 2022, a deal was allegedly made between the two men for Lampi to buy a stillborn boy who was to be cremated at the mortuary where Scott worked. She claimed to have cremated the baby but then sold it to Pauley for $300, according to the indictment.
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Pauley allegedly traded the stillborn’s remains plus $1,550 in exchange for five skulls from Lampi.
On April 17, 2022, Lampi allegedly told Pauley he wanted more remains, saying, “Cool I want faces as we spoke about other stuff too.”
On May 27, 2022, Pauley reached out to Lampi saying he had a pair of “smoker’s lungs” for sale, which he then allegedly sold to Lampi for $1,900.
In June 2022, local police talked to Pauley saying they had been tipped off he was selling human remains.
“Hello so what did the police say,” Lampi asked.
Pauley responded that he had been asked about the human remains and “in the end the only thing that mattered was nothing was proved grave robbed or stolen out of a morgue,” followed by a smiley face emoji.
According to the indictment, Lampi paid nearly $9,000 to Pauley. On his end, Pauley paid more than $119,000 to the East Bethel man. The men’s exchanges involved nearly 15 packages sent from Pennsylvania to Minnesota between September 2021 and June 2022.
Scott and Pauley have both pleaded not guilty.
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Harvard Medical School
The indictment announcement names several others including a former manager at the Harvard Medical School morgue and his wife, federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania announced this week.
Cedric Lodge, 55, of Goffstown, New Hampshire, stole dissected portions of cadavers that were donated to the school in the scheme that stretched from 2018 to early 2023, according to court documents. Lodge sometimes took the body parts — which included heads, brains, skin and bones — back to his home where he lived with his wife, Denise, 63, and some remains were sent to buyers through the mail, authorities said. Lodge allegedly allowed buyers to come to the morgue to pick what remains they wanted to buy.
Along with Lampi, Scott, Pauley and the Lodges, two other people— Katrina Maclean, 44, of Salem, Massachusetts, and Joshua Taylor, 46, of West Lawn, Pennsylvania — were charged with conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen goods.
St. Paul Pioneer Press reporter Mara Gottfried contributed to this report.
Source: Duluth News Tribune
