Authorities said that Candace Chapman Scott stole human remains and sold these to Jeremy Pauley, pictured here. (Mugshot: Cumberland County District Attorney’s Office)
An Arkansas woman finally faces charges months after authorities arrested her co-defendant for allegedly buying stolen body parts from her. The district attorney’s office in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, named Candace Chapman Scott, 39, last year when announcing their case against Jeremy Pauley, 40.
A federal grand jury indicted her on April 5, and the case was unsealed Friday, according to The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Scott and Pauley allegedly belonged to the same Facebook group regarding “oddities.”
“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.”
Cops in East Pennsboro, Pennsylvania, arrested Pauley on Aug. 18, 2022. Prosecutors said officers got a complaint on June 14, 2022, of possible human body parts sold on Facebook. Then, on July 8, a person called cops out to a home on N. Enola Drive regarding possible human remains.
“The caller reported finding possible human remains in the basement of the residence contained inside of several 5-gallon buckets,” authorities wrote.
That person described finding “human organs” and “human skins” inside the buckets, prosecutors said. Detectives, forensic investigators, and the coroner’s office executed a search warrant to indeed find three 5-gallon buckets containing human remains, according to the DA’s office.
“Among the remains identified were human brains, heart, livers, skin and lungs,” prosecutors wrote.
Investigators determined that Pauley had been trying to buy more human remains from Scott, a resident of Little Rock, Arkansas. She shipped the items over, but investigators intercepted the packages en route and discovered the grisly contents, according to the DA’s office.
Prosecutors at the time said Scott had stolen those body parts from an Arkansas mortuary and shipped them to Pennsylvania for sale.
“Those human remains were determined to be the property of the University of Arkansas,” authorities wrote.
Federal authorities said Scott sold to Pauley between October 2021 and July 2022, according to the Democrat-Gazette. Scott was arraigned on Friday for charges including mail fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property. Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Thomas Ray ordered her held pending a federal bond hearing. Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Jegley wanted her in custody throughout her criminal case, citing the lengthy potential prison sentence.
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