Owner of White Bear Lake tattoo parlor charged with trafficking body parts

The longtime owner of a tattoo parlor in White Bear Lake was among six people indicted this week on federal charges of buying and selling stolen human remains.

Matt Lampi, 52, of East Bethel, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen goods.

Federal prosecutors allege that a nationwide network bought and sold human remains from Harvard Medical School and an Arkansas mortuary. From 2018 through 2022, Cedric Lodge, morgue manager for Harvard Medical School's anatomical gifts program, stole organs and other body parts of cadavers donated for medical research and education, according to the indictment. Lodge and his wife, Denise Lodge, sold the remains to various people across the country, prosecutors say, sometimes allowing buyers into the morgue to examine cadavers.

Among the buyers was Pennsylvanian Jeremy Pauley, a self-described preservationist of "retired medical specimens and curator to historic remains." One of Pauley's passions is "the tanning of human leather adorned with tattoos for the purposes of mourning the dearly departed," according to his website

Pauley sold many of the remains he purchased, the indictment said; Lampi was identified as one of those buyers, also selling other items to Pauley.

"Some crimes defy understanding," said Gerard Karam, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, in a statement. "The theft and trafficking of human remains strikes at the very essence of what makes us human."

A man who identified himself as Lampi hung up on a Star Tribune reporter Thursday, and a family member contacted by the Star Tribune declined to speak about him.

Prosecutors say part of the scheme went like this: The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock had a program where people could gift their body after death for medical education, teaching and research. Candace Chapman Scott, a mortician who embalmed and cremated bodies in the mortuary, stole parts of cadavers she was supposed to have cremated. She sold and shipped some of these remains to Pauley, including bones, skulls, skin, whole stillborn babies, dissected faces and heads, and internal organs, which were called "wet specimens."

Pauley then resold some of the cadaver parts to others around the country, including Lampi, according to the indictment. The scheme lasted from at least 2018 until 2022.

In December 2021, Scott and Pauley negotiated a sale: "2 brains, one with skullcap, 3 hearts one cut, 2 fake boobies, one large belly button piece of skin, one arm, one huge piece of skin, and one lung." Pauley paid her $1,600 via PayPal, then told Lampi he had hearts and brains coming. Lampi agreed to buy three items for $4,000, according to the charges.

"Deal!" Pauley responded.

Communication went on like this for months, much of it on Facebook Messenger.

"Update on parts?" Lampi wrote five days after they agreed to the December 2021 deal.

Two days later, Pauley wrote back: "Going to pack up your brain and heart tonight, arm isn't here yet but I'll send it out as soon as it arrives!"

A couple months later, the two agreed to a trade: Pauley would send Lampi a stolen stillborn baby in exchange for five human skulls, the indictment said.

In total, the two exchanged more than $100,000 in online payments as they bought and sold from each other, the charges say.

Lampi, who owns Get to the Point Tattoos, has a virtually clean criminal record, Minnesota court records show, though he has been sued three times in recent years for unpaid credit card debt totaling more than $20,000.

In a March 2020 Instagram video, Lampi said he'd been interested in tattooing since he was 14, when his uncle, who'd done 25 years in prison, tattooed a dragon on his arm.

"I bought some Higgins India Ink from the store and started poking little skulls and roses on my cousins, my friends," Lampi said.

The Instagram video shows Lampi tattooing various people. Human skulls and other oddities can be seen on display at his business. It's unclear whether the skulls are authentic.

In a 2008 profile of Lampi in Skin Deep, a U.K. tattoo magazine, Lampi said he is a collector of curios such as human skulls "and a customer's toe."

"If you believe in the positive and good in things, you must embrace the dark and negative as well," Lampi said in the interview. "So many artists have trouble with drawing or designing evil images and those that nature has not been kind to; the dark and chilling side of the human condition should be brought to life as well. Sunny days are great and special, but the near misses and spooky sounds in the night really make you think and feel alive."

Lampi's tattoo parlor is in a strip mall in White Bear Lake between a smoke shop and a dance and music studio.

Vy Dam, the owner of Hello Boba, a bubble tea shop a couple of doors down, said she's met Lampi on several occasions. He seemed perfectly normal, she said, and connected her with contractors to help build her business.

"That is actually terrifying," she said. "I have 21 staff at my store, and most of them are under 18. It's very scary to hear ... My staff is like my children almost. I'll take extra precaution to protect them."