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Two months later, after hearing nothing from Hess, Schum went to Sunset Mesa to retrieve her friend's ashes. Part 8: Former workers describe troubling practices at this mortuary-body broker, including allegations of deceptive marketing and an account of how gold dental work was removed from corpses and sold. Both have become experts on the secret industry of selling body parts on a world wide market. After contacting Hess in December about the content of the brochure, Dolin said Hess told the organ transplant group that the brochure in question was old and has not been used for some time.. The states Department of Regulatory Agencies said it has nine open complaints about Sunset Mesa higher than average for funeral homes in the state, said spokesman Lee Rasizer. Finally Reh and her boyfriend went to the funeral home with the expectation that they would see their baby. But days went by and she couldnt reach anyone. Jeffersonville funeral home under investigation after police find A grand jury indictment said that from 2010 through 2018, Hess and Koch offered to cremate bodies and provide the remains to families at a cost of $1,000 or more, but many of the cremations never occurred. Legal Statement. Teselle said, Whats shocking to me is that theres not an outcry for there to be more legislation, theres not an outcry for the government to regulate and license these people.. State investigates 'Buried by the Bernards' funeral home - WREG.com Investigation into the allegations are ongoing with the Texas Funeral Services . All they got was the urn and a death certificate no other paperwork. Her funeral home site listed her credentials, including a PhD in mortuary science. The ex-employee said that she witnessed a collection of gold teeth that Hess mother allegedly extracted from the corpses fillings or crowns and that the familycashed in on the gold to pay for a trip to Disneyland in California. Before referring questions to a lawyer, Hess spoke extensively with Reuters about her body broker company. Thousands more patients could benefit from life saving and healing eye and tissue donations.. Specifics of the scope of theFBI investigation are unclear. Both Hess and Koch originally had pleaded not guilty to the charges. Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way. The owner of the funeral homes, Shannon Kent, is also Lake Countys coroner. It is illegal in the United States to sell organs such as hearts, kidneys and tendons for transplant; they must be donated. The attorney, Carol Viner, asked Reuters to refrain from contacting Hess employees for any reason.. At Donor Services, her body parts business, Hess can generate a greater return on the dead, a different price list reviewed by Reuters showed. Just about any adult can run for coroner in Colorado. Market data provided by Factset. The. Enter your email address to join 3,177 readers who subscribe to all Funeral Director articles. Connie Hansons sons body parts were also allegedly sold. I saw a lot inside as far as, you know, body parts and things like that. She continued, But I was oblivious to what was going on. I didnt believe in depression until I lost my baby, Cavanagh said. . She did. DENVER, Colorado - A former Colorado funeral home owner was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on Tuesday for defrauding relatives of the dead by dissecting 560 . As a result, Peck and his funeral home were required to pay a $2,500 fine and $5,000 in investigative costs and attorney fees. felt they were too heavy to be those of a stillborn child, and submitted them for analysis. At Sunset Mesa, Hess charged $1,995 for a simple burial and $695 for a basic cremation, according to price lists reviewed by Reuters. some timely learning opportunities for our readers, Dont forget Low-tech to build your brand. Colorado Funeral Home Owners Charged With Brokering Body Parts The most expensive prices were for an upper torso that included a head and arms ($4,000) and the cost of an entire body was $5,000, according to the price list. (McGovern said no industry regulated by the Division of Professions and Occupations has regulators assigned exclusively to it.) Lawsuits pile up against former funeral director - Tennessee Lookout Eaton Family Funeral Home Ordway, Colorado - imortuary.com 06, 2021. did not receive a contract for funeral services, and only received the cremains after several calls to Kent, the order states. Like many, Hanson found out about her son Frederick during a phone call from an FBI agent. They both plan to file complaints with the Department of Regulatory Affairs. (Google). Feb 4, 2023, 5:26 PM SGT. Koch told the judge she was sorry and took responsibility for her actions. According to the Johnstown, N.Y. Police Department, Brian M. Barnett, 35, who owns the since-shuttered Ehle . She signed a contract with a Montrose funeral home to have his body cremated. The suspension order details a 2019 instance in which an unnamed individual arranged with Kents funeral home for the cremation of their stillborn child. A few days later, she was able to pick up the cremains, but like E.W., Cavanagh received no paperwork. Funeral homes in Leadville and Gypsum are under criminal investigation after authorities this month found an unrefrigerated body, bags of unlabeled cremains, an abandoned stillborn infant and at least one instance in which a family received cremains for their stillborn child mixed with bits of adult body parts and metal fragments. She took orders for body parts via Hotmail, email records show. An Upstate New York funeral home proprietor is facing imminent criminal charges for allegedly keeping dead human bodies in "advanced states of decomposition" in his business and its detached garage, local officials announced Friday. POCATELLO, Idaho A Pocatello funeral home under investigation by the Idaho Board of Morticians has had its licenses revoked. . A Colorado funeral home operator who was accused of selling and stealing body parts pleaded guilty to mail fraud on Tuesday, the US justice department . On January 8, 2011, U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords and 18 others were shot during a constituent meeting held in a supermarket parking lot in Casas Adobes, Arizona, in the Tucson metropolitan area. Fo A Colorado funeral home operator accused of illegally selling body parts and giving clients fake ashes has been sentenced to 20 years in prison By The Associated Press January 4, 2023, 12:16 AM The name of the state is derived form the Spanish . "Our sweet mother, they dismembered her," Erin Smith said, selling her shoulders, knees and feet for profit. A former employee has alleged misconduct regarding the disposal of the deceased at Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas. Why Donor Services was unable to trace Dunlaps head remains unclear. You are not looking at the full disposition (of a body). The operators of a Colorado funeral home suspected of running a side business selling body parts without consent have been indicted on fraud and illegally transporting diseased cadavers. and Cavanagh, Reh had an immensely difficult time reaching the Kents, the phone ringing unanswered for weeks. One of Hesss donors was Rex Dunlap, a frugal Coloradan battling brain cancer. TX Funeral Service Commission Investigating Golden Gate - Spectrum News Kent has not yet been arrested for the most recent incidents, which at the Leadville funeral home included authorities' discovery of an abandoned stillborn, according to the Oct. 13 summary suspension issued by Colorados Office of Funeral Home and Crematory Registration. Hiring funeral directors: Do you look for IQ or EQ? In court on Tuesday, Hess declined to speak to the judge. Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. Leave a sympathy message to the family on the memorial page of Charles Lynch to pay them a last tribute. Twenty-six victims described their horror at discovering what had happened to their loved ones. It is unbelievable, said Dave Teselle, a Denver-based attorney who represents Hancock and more than five dozen other families in a claim against the owners of Sunset Mesa and the companies who are accused of buying the body parts. On March 16, the director of the Office of Funeral Home and Crematory Registration sent Kent a letter of admonition after a state investigator found unembalmed, unrefrigerated bodily remains in his Gypsum funeral home more than 24 hours from the date of death. Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. "This is the most emotionally draining. In an interview in 2016, she described Donor Services as a small, family business. The judge ordered that Hess and Koch be sent to prison immediately. When asked if it contained her husbands cremains, she said, I dont know.. The emotional, daylong hearing brought to a close a five-year legal odyssey that began when the FBI raided the funeral home in February 2018, following a Reuters investigation that found Sunset Mesa to be unlike any other business in the country. A woman is among more than five dozen family members currently suing the family that operated the now shut-down Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, after finding out her husband's body parts had been sold without her consent. Jan 3 (Reuters) - A former Colorado funeral home owner was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on Tuesday for defrauding relatives of the dead by dissecting 560 corpses and selling body. First published on Wed 6 Jul 2022 10.36 EDT. The couple got dressed up in matching outfits and brought a special camera. Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. There is even more money to be made in dissecting those bodies and selling the parts. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Email: newsroom@coloradosun.com No one would pick up the phone. Women who sold body parts out of their Colorado funeral home are Read on to see why: At a glance, the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home appeared to be a business helping locals through the loss of their loved ones. Funeral home owners charged with desecrating human remains Peck was given another six months of probation. [wpforms id=436 title=true description=true]. FBI scrutinizes funeral home that also makes money selling - Reuters In another call two months later, Staci Kent responded to a death scene without a body bag, the indictment states, which led to an argument with law enforcement. MONTROSE, Colorado The Federal Bureau of Investigation is interviewing former employees of a funeral home whose owner runs a side business on the same premises selling human body parts. Hess' mother, Shirley Koch, has also been indicted. The FBI hired a lab to test the cremains given to the families, and they have determined the boxes of ash contain cement, sand and other non-human particles. MONTROSE, Colo. (CBS4) - Federal authorities raided a funeral home in Montrose on Tuesday, at which the owner is under investigation for a side-business donating bodies for education and. Funeral homes owned by a Colorado coroner under investigation following Pam Boyd/pboyd@vaildaily.com. Another alleged victim said her mothers body was desecrated. According to Reuters Sunset Mesa Funeral Home had seen their call volume increase from 59 in 2015 to 128 in 2017. The Lake County Sheriffs Office confirmed an active criminal investigation is underway. Meme Eberspacher, Dunlaps niece, was at his bedside the night that Dunlap died. Suppliers of transplant tissue must obtain federal recognition and operate as charities. The confrontation escalated when Shannon Kent allegedly called Lake County Sheriff Amy Reyes and threatened her with arrest for questioning his wifes decision not to use the body bag, prosecutors said. Think about it, the FBI came in and raided them, and they raided them because they knew this body broker this was getting bigger and bigger and bigger, said Berg. Shannon and Staci Kent did not respond to interview requests from The Denver Post. Hansons box included wires and what appear to be old batteries. The recent parade of early deaths has hit close to home. The Daily Sentinel reports that Megan Hess faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison after entering the plea Tuesday in Grand Junction. The NBC10 Investigators found bodies inside an unlicensed funeral home in Chester, Pennsylvania. It is also the only state that doesnt license funeral directors. The suspension order details a 2019 instance in which an unnamed individual arranged with Kents funeral home for the cremation of their stillborn child. or redistributed. Megan Hess faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison after entering the plea Tuesday in Grand Junction, Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), Members of the FBI, along with Montrose law enforcement investigate the Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services building Tuesday morning, February 6, 2018. But the business arrangement is highly unusual. Its not something that can be fixed., Hancock was notified by the FBI that her husbands body parts had been sold without her consent. Neither addressed the issue about the teeth. florida medical examiner case search - aboutray16-eiga.com No one would pick up the phone. You are not looking at the full disposition (of a body). There is also evidence of Donor Services shipping at least 26 boxes containing body parts to various parts of the world in 2016 according to evidence that has been recovered. In their filing, prosecutors stressed the "macabre nature" of Hess' scheme and described it as one of the most significant body parts cases in recent U.S. history. But selling body parts such as heads, arms and spines which is what Hess did for use in research or education is not regulated by federal law. Montrose, Colorado: A former funeral home operator pleads guilty to There are no ethics there when you do that. Former Colorado funeral home owner sentenced to 20 years for selling The startling discovery led to a further investigation of oversight in the funeral industry. The surgical-training companies and other firms which bought the arms, legs, heads and torsos from Hess did not know they had been fraudulently obtained, prosecutors said. In 2009, Hess also created a nonprofit called Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation, d/b/a Donor Services, a body broker service operated out of the same location as SMFD. Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. Hess runs Sunset Mesa, a funeral home, and Donor Services, a body broker operation from the same building in Montrose. Sunset Mesa, like all other funeral homes in Colorado, is required by state law to have a death certificate filed with the vital records office before obtaining a disposition permit. Andrew Scheid has been the director at . Colorado Funeral Homes. I know these are not his ashes because his body parts went all over the country, Hanson said. The Denver attorney is referring to the limited and nonexistent regulation nationwide and worldwide regarding the procurement and selling of bodies and body parts. State Bans Coroner Shannon Kent From Private Business After Remains, Waste Found At Home-Based Colorado Funeral Home December 3, 2020 / 7:33 AM / CBS Colorado Chantal Reh, an Avon resident, went through a similar experience when she suffered a stillborn birth in August 2018. The indictment accuses Kent of allowing his wife to go out to death scenes as a deputy coroner, even though she took no oath and an appointment had not been filed with the county clerk, as required by law. Instead, the media was interested in the dark history behind the town's funeral home, Sunset Mesa. According to Jeffersonville Police Major Isaac Parker, the department began its investigation of the Lankford Funeral Home and Family Center in Jeffersonville on Friday. Funeral home owner who dismembered corpses, sold body parts sentenced MONTROSE, Colo. A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. The 20-year term was the maximum allowed under law. Buyers ranged from educators and scientists to individuals in the medical industry. . When Mabry and Eberspacher went to Sunset Mesa the morning after Dunlap died, Hess and Koch said they could not locate the eye, Eberspacher said. Hess is tentatively set to be sentenced in January. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. The remains Hess returned to families were also not those of their loved ones. The Colorado Office of Funeral Home and Crematory Registration has no employees dedicated solely to it and an annual budget of less than $85,000. It was kind of creepy.. After receiving the cremains, E.W. Colorado Funeral Home Caught Selling Bodies Intended For Cremation N.Y. I said I dont want to hear anymore.. SENTINEL FILE PHOTO Sisters Layna and Janet Hutt hold photos of their father, Raymond Hutt, who died in 2016 at the age of 96. Colorado funeral home operators sentenced for selling body parts They desecrated his little body, she said. Responding to the investigations and details reported out of Montrose, Colorado lawmakers could become the first in the country to pass a law making it illegal for funeral home or crematory owners to operate as a body broker. Staci Kent arrived to one of those death scenes without a body bag, which spurred an argument with authorities, the indictment notes. felt they were too heavy to be those of a stillborn child, and submitted them for analysis. FBI Raids Montrose Funeral Home Accused Of Donating - CBS News Thank you for thinking of me.. Each edition is filled with exclusive news, analysis and other behind-the-scenes information you wont find anywhere else. . The Donor Services brochure was criticized as deceptive by two major U.S. organ donation groups after Reuters shared it with them. These illegitimate businesses are buying and selling body parts just like anything off the shelf at Walmart, added Teselle. It comes on the heels of a law passed in 2020 that. Kent has not been arrested in this latest incident and no charges have been filed, though the two funeral homes business licenses have been suspended by the state. Lake County coroner Shannon Kent owns both the Bailey-Kent Funeral Home in Leadville about 100 miles southeast of Denver and the Kent Funeral Home Gypsum about 133 miles west of the Mile High City, The Denver Post reported Friday. Take a look at some of Colorado's most notorious crimes. Downard Funeral Home Under Investigation, ISU Involved There are many events that have unfolded over the past couple weeks involving Downard Funeral Home, some including Idaho State University (ISU). The report also noted that a former employee at Sunset Mesa was troubled by Hess mother, who was responsible for embalming and dismembering the dead bodies. Now the women wonder how many others might have had the same experience. The fact that now the business is also making money from the sale of body parts if that is not being told to the family, it is unethical and probably illegal, if only as deception, said Robert Fells, general counsel of the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association, an industry trade group. pleaded guilty to fraud in July after a . A pelvis with upper legs went for $1,200, heads for $500, a knee for $250, and a foot for $125, according to a 2013 Donor Services price list reviewed by Reuters. Former Colorado funeral home owner sentenced to 20 years for selling This compassionate help is the essence of what we do. Reuters could not independently verify this figure. Body brokers like Donor Services are also known as non-transplant tissue banks. This whole situation, oh, I thought it was part of my past.. In another call two months later, Staci Kent responded to a death scene without a body bag, the indictment states, which led to an argument with law enforcement. (William Woody, Special to the Colorado Sun), Lawmakers targeting hospital facility fees, (720) 263-2338 Call, text, Signal or WhatsApp, Proudly powered by Newspack by Automattic. Jacque Hampson spent a year working as Hesss personal assistant. GRAND JUNCTION A Colorado funeral home operator accused of illegally selling body parts and giving clients fake ashes has pleaded guilty to mail fraud in federal court. However, there was more going on beneath the surface. No one returned her voicemails. Separate from the FBI inquiry, Reuters has learned that Colorado state funeral regulators are investigating Hess's funeral home, Sunset Mesa. Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas is accused of a range of misdeeds, from not embalming or refrigerating bodies in a . Amid FBI investigation, state closes case on Montrose funeral home When Schum hesitated, Hess said she would waive the cremation fee if Schum agreed to donate her friend's bladder to science. In Colorado and most other states, it's legal for funeral homes to sell items taken from corpses, including the gold found in teeth. Kent also operates funeral homes in Silverthorne, Idaho Springs, Fairplay and Buena Vista. Reached by phone at Sunset Mesa, Koch said she did not wish to talk with a Reuters reporter. Colorado Funeral Home / Body Broker Continues Under Investigation I go to sleep with the visions of him being dismembered with a power saw, said Ruthie Pettyjohn, whose sons body parts were allegedly sold. And much like E.W. As she mourned the loss of her son, Cavanagh was referred to the Kent Funeral Home in Gypsum to do the cremation. and Cavanagh, Reh had an immensely difficult time reaching the Kents, the phone ringing unanswered for weeks. She says Shirley Koch came to pick up his body. NBC10 . Telling stories that matter in a dynamic, evolving state. The investigation of Kents funeral homes began in February after the sheriffs office received a complaint by a client regarding the handling of human remains. Reuters Investigates offers several ways to securely contact our reporters. On March 16, the director of the Office of Funeral Home and Crematory Registration sent Kent a letter of admonition after a state investigator found unembalmed, unrefrigerated bodily remains in his Gypsum funeral home more than 24 hours from the date of death. The owner of the funeral homes, Shannon Kent, is also Lake Countys coroner. We were greeted at the door by her father, who told us to leave the property. The Daily Sentinel Megan Hess None of the former employees or associates Reuters interviewed worked directly for the body broker business. . Funeral Director Daily take: I have a hard time fathoming what may have went on at this funeral home. Extra charges are assessed if a body is embalmed or a funeral director is involved. Hess' lawyer said she has been unfairly vilified as a "witch," a "monster" and a "ghoul," when instead she is a "broken human being" whose conduct can be attributed to a traumatic brain injury at age 18. You are looking at how to make money.. Hess had created a nonprofit organization in 2009 called Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation as a body-broker service doing business as Donor Services, authorities said. She was sold, embalmed and shipped out within just a few hours of her death, said Holloman. Such a partnership may raise ethical concerns because it creates a financial incentive for the funeral home. Its for profit and people dont realize there is a huge demand for cadavers and body parts., That demand comes from all over the world including medical schools, law enforcement agencies, the military and a variety of other industries looking to legitimately purchase bodies and body parts for credible research. The Unaffiliated is our twice-weekly newsletter on Colorado politics and policy. The friend would then place the glass eye in an urn containing half of Dunlaps ashes and bury the urn atop the grave of Dunlaps father in Telluride, Colorado. Koch said she had sold a different batch a year prior, and they took the whole family to Disneyland in California on the gold that they cashed in, Escher said. Hess committed crimes, prosecutors said, when she defrauded relatives of the deceased by lying about cremations and by dissecting bodies and selling them without permission. On Oct. 13, the state shut down both the Gypsum operation and . I just figured it was a legitimate business., When asked by Denver7 if she ever heard bodies being dismembered, Hampson said, you could hear the machine going. Asked if that machine was a saw, she said, Yes, you could hear that in the room (a back room at the funeral home). The Bailey-Kent Funeral Home was the only option given to her for cremation under a certain weight, she said. Shannon and Staci Kent did not respond to interview requests from The Denver Post. Colorado funeral home owner sentenced in body sales case