felt they were too heavy to be those of a stillborn child, and submitted them for analysis. John Wayne Gacy House: Now. 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 A Medical Examiner can often discover hidden evidence of injury to explain a sudden death, or can document natural diseases to show that no foul play was involved in the death. Before he died in 2016, the 78-year-old retired contractor saved $200 on cremation by agreeing to pledge parts of his body to Donor Services. Hansons box included wires and what appear to be old batteries. Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to fraud in July 2022 after a 2018 investigation that exposed her for selling parts of dead bodies that were brought to the funeral home for cremation. Enter your email address to join 3,177 readers who subscribe to all Funeral Director articles. The recent parade of early deaths has hit close to home. Prosecutors recommended a sentence for Hess of 12 to 15 years. [wpforms id=436 title=true description=true]. The Bailey-Kent Funeral Home was the only option given to her for cremation under a certain weight, she said. Kent operates six funeral homes in the states high country, which also include Buena Vista, Fairplay, Idaho Springs, and Silverthorne. "We don't even have a name for a crime this heinous. Her funeral home site listed her credentials, including a PhD in mortuary science. I thought it was something that needs to be corrected," said state Senator Larry Crowder, one of the bills sponsors. 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 . As you likely know by now, Diamond of the famous 'Diamond and Silk' sister duo, has passed away at the young age of only 51. After receiving the cremains, E.W. This whole situation, oh, I thought it was part of my past.. Both Hess and Koch originally had pleaded not guilty to the charges. Along with it would be a note reading: Heres looking at you. The rest of his ashes would be buried with Dunlaps mother in Denver. Investigation into the allegations are ongoing with the Texas Funeral Services . The allegations of offering free services and then selling body parts without the knowledge of the client family is beyond my scope of thinking as to what funeral directors should be doing. 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. The details of the plea agreement are unknown, but a trial for Hess' mother is still on track to proceed. 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 parts without permission. Both Reh and Cavanagh said they want to get the ashes analyzed at the University of Colorado to see if they actually belong to their babies. Finally, after a month, she got Staci Kent on the phone and laid into her, asking why she hadnt heard anything about her sons cremains. At her funeral home, Hess charged families up to $1,000 for cremations that never occurred, prosecutors said, and she offered others free cremations in exchange for a body donation. The funeral home's owners, Megan Hess, 43, and her mother . Now its possible its not my baby in the urn, Reh said. The owner of the funeral homes, Shannon Kent, is also Lake Countys coroner. You are not looking at the full disposition (of a body). Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to fraud in July. On Oct. 2, the Lake and Eagle county sheriffs departments executed a search warrant at the Bailey-Kent Funeral Home in Leadville, where deputies encountered a strong odor of decomposition, according to an Oct. 13 summary suspension issued by the states Office of Funeral Home and Crematory Registration, before finding: In addition to the Leadville funeral home, the state issued suspension orders for the Kent Funeral Home Gypsum. But two said Hess sometimes bragged about how lucrative it was to sell bodies and body parts. Escher said Koch, who embalmed and dismembered bodies, pulled teeth from some of the corpses to extract the gold in crowns or fillings. At Sunset Mesa, Hess charged $1,995 for a simple burial and $695 for a basic cremation, according to price lists reviewed by Reuters. Funeral Director Daily take: I have a hard time fathoming what may have went on at this funeral home. 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. Two months later, after hearing nothing from Hess, Schum went to Sunset Mesa to retrieve her friend's ashes. 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. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers. NBC10 . As she mourned the loss of her son, Cavanagh was referred to the Kent Funeral Home in Gypsum to do the cremation. Hes already facing charges of official misconduct and perjury stemming from allegations last year that he sent his wife Staci to multiple death scenes even though she wasnt authorized to serve as a deputy coroner. Hancock is one of many family members who has learned the cremains she was given by the owners of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose contained items and materials that were not her husband. The owner of the funeral homes, Shannon Kent, is also Lake Countys coroner. Funeral homes are required to register with the state, but spokesman Rasizer said the regulatory affairs department is not authorized to inspect mortuaries. On at least three occasions, Staci Kent allegedly responded to calls from law enforcement requesting a coroner at a death scene, according to the indictment. Andrew Scheid has been the director at . That individual, referred to in the order only as E.W., received no notice that the cremation would be done at the Gypsum funeral home, one of six locations Kent operates in Colorados high country. With a population of about 20,000, Montrose is a community surrounded by the beauty of the Rocky Mountains. The Justice Department did not respond to Fox News' request for comment. 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. The probe into the coroners funeral homes started back in February, after a client complained to the Lake County Sheriffs Office about the handling of human remains. Legal Statement. No federal law prohibits the buying and selling of human body parts to be used in research and education. The 20-year term was the maximum allowed under law. Other charges against Hess will be dropped under a plea agreement, the Sentinel said. In 2020, authorities charged the two with mail fraud and illegal transportation of hazardous materials. Such a partnership may raise ethical concerns because it creates a financial incentive for the funeral home. some timely learning opportunities for our readers, Dont forget Low-tech to build your brand. They were arrested in 2020 and charged with six counts of mail fraud and three counts of illegal transportation of hazardous materials. We did not provide our messaging to be repurposed in this brochure, and are following up, said spokeswoman Erin Dolin. 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). Kent also operates funeral homes in Silverthorne, Idaho Springs, Fairplay and Buena Vista. Colorado regulators can now inspect funeral homes and crematories without owners' permission The state has long had some of the laxest laws in the nation surrounding funeral homes Joe. Fells called running such a multifaceted operation a new frontier., Through the attorney, Hess declined to comment for this story and didnt address questions about the FBI probe, her business practices, and the allegations by former employees. What You Need To Know. In Colorado, the states organ donation program, Donor Alliance, said Hesss marketing language could be confusing to people.. Hess, along with her mother and father, are all named in a lawsuit, which accuses them of using a backroom to dismember cadavers with a power saw and stack body parts in coolers. Pictures show bodies stacked in hallways and unrefrigerated rental trucks. During her speech at Diamond's funeral, her partner in crime, Silk, implied that there was foul play involved in her death and urged for an investigation. Build the strongest argument relying on authoritative content, attorney-editor expertise, and industry defining technology. Authorities are now investigating. She says Shirley Koch came to pick up his body. Hess made donating a body online easy. When Reuters visited her facility in 2016, Hess said Donor Services represented just 15 percent or so of her total business. Donating bodies, selling the parts: Frequently asked questions. One ex-employee, Kari Escher, said she was especially troubled by the practices of Hesss mother, Shirley Koch, who works at the facility. Email: newsroom@coloradosun.com At Donor Services, her body parts business, Hess can generate a greater return on the dead, a different price list reviewed by Reuters showed. Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. 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. The conflict of interest of having a side business in body parts just leads to problems,Steve Palmer, a funeral director in Cottonwood, Ariz., and former member of the policy board at the National Funeral Directors Association, said. This content was originally published here. In Colorado, there are few regulations to catch shoddy behavior, such as illegitimate body trading, by mortuaries. All they got was the urn and a death certificate no other paperwork. Before he died in 2016, the 78-year-old retired contractor saved $200 on cremation by agreeing to pledge parts of his body to Donor Services. 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. N.Y. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. A former Colorado funeral home operator has pleaded guilty to stealing and then selling hundreds of human bodies or body parts to people who were buying the remains for scientific, medical or . by Mr. Leadville | Oct 26, 2020 | Leadville News. A A A Colorado-based funeral home director has been sentenced to 20 years in prison stemming from a litany of charges including fraud and illegally selling the body parts or bodies of approximately 500 individuals whose families did not consent to that practice. 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. Body brokering is not illegal in Colorado; however, a 2020 Denver7 report noted that Hess, along with her mother, were donating bodies without the consent of the deceased's family. According to Reuters Sunset Mesa Funeral Home had seen their call volume increase from 59 in 2015 to 128 in 2017. No one would pick up the phone. Hancock is one of more than five dozen family members currently suing the family that operated the now shut-down Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose. The brochure, provided to Reuters by Hess during the 2016 interview, continued this way: Every year, organ, eye and tissue transplants provide hope to tens of thousands of people suffering from disease, injury, trauma or blindness. 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. Hiring funeral directors: Do you look for IQ or EQ? 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. Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. Details uncovered in the FBI investigation were shared with her. Funeral home remains under federal investigation 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. It was kinda creepy., It is totally unregulated, said Burg. Holloman now deals with the guilt of knowing details of what happened to her moms body. Koch's central role was chopping up the bodies, court records show. Most brokers who sell body parts offer to cremate part of the donors body for free. No one returned her voicemails. 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. Im not interested. On her cremation marketing website, a donor could simply select from a drop-down menu, fill out a few forms, click Add to Cart, and enter a credit card number. Fo The New York Times, a far-left outlet, admitted in a report that Trump's rollback of a rule from President Barack Subscribe to Funeral Director Daily Earlier this month, authorities from both Lake and Eagle counties encountered a strong odor of decomposition when they searched the Leadville funeral home, reads. Thousands more patients could benefit from life saving and healing eye and tissue donations.. 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. The NBC10 Investigators found bodies inside an unlicensed funeral home in Chester, Pennsylvania. . But no federal law governs the sale of cadavers or body parts for use in research or education. The charges defray the cost of picking up the deceased, she said in the 2016 interview. After reading the states suspension order this week, two women told The Denver Post that the circumstances surrounding E.W. sound eerily familiar. ), Windsors Newest Hot Spot is Open and Smells of Glorious Bacon [Photos], The Cheapest Home in Weld County is Selling for Less Than $90K, Local Fort Collins Photographer Wins 3rd Grammy in the Visual Arts, WATCH: This Deleted Scene From The Office Totally Calls Out Colorado, The 2023 Cheyenne Frontier Days Concert Lineup Has Been Announced, This Weeks Larimer Countys Most Wanted: Dallas Rusk, 3 Northern Colorado Districts in Top 10 for Slow Internet Access, New Life Planned for this Beloved Greeley Building, the dark history behind the town's funeral home, READ: This 1993 Steamboat Springs Murder Became One of the Nation's Most Chilling Cases. ThinkStock via Getty Images. The attorney, Carol Viner, asked Reuters to refrain from contacting Hess employees for any reason.. She mentioned on several occasions about how much money she would be getting per month, which blew my mind, said Jennifer Henderson, a former floral designer for Sunset Mesa. On Monday, the family of Ramon Lara Castillo a 63-year-old Nashville house painter who succumbed to liver cancer in October 2020 filed a federal lawsuit against former funeral director Reid Van Ness and the operators of a funeral home in Lewisburg, Tenn. Roommates and friends of Castillo paid Van Ness $1,800 to ship the body home to his . ", Tina Shanon, whose mother was dismembered against her will, told the court, "I've worn many masks to cover the pain. Hess, 45, and her mother, Shirley Koch, operated the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose. The eye was never returned, said Eberspacher and Dunlaps friend, Ron Mabry. 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. Staci Kent, however, wouldnt let them see the baby, Reh said. A state investigation by the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance now focuses on a Memphis funeral home that's also the focus of a Netflix reality show. A human head and spine sold for $850, while a full pelvis all the way to the toes priced out at $2,850. I didnt believe in depression until I lost my baby, Cavanagh said. It was kind of creepy.. It is illegal in the United States to sell organs such as hearts, kidneys and tendons for transplant; they must be donated. A funeral home in Crapaud, Prince Edward Island is under RCMP investigation for allegations of financial irregularities. Some of those family members are now questioning if the services were held free of charge while Donor Services sent some of the remains (body parts) to clients for payments without the knowledge and consent of family members. Feb 4, 2023, 5:26 PM SGT. ", Funeral home remains under federal investigation. In court on Tuesday, Hess declined to speak to the judge. These illegitimate businesses are buying and selling body parts just like anything off the shelf at Walmart, added Teselle. The lawsuit claims the three sold torsos for $1,000, a pelvis with upper legs for $1,200. (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. found out the cremains contained ashes from an infant, but also long bone fragments of an older/larger adult individual and metal, according to the suspension order. In February 2018, Lina Cavanagh lost her baby at an advanced stage of pregnancy a loss that took its toll on her, both physically and emotionally. Sam Tabachnik is a roving reporter for The Denver Post, focusing on stories outside metro Denver. However, there was more going on beneath the surface. The back of the brochure featured the logo Donate Life, the national brand that promotes organ donation and is managed by Donate Life America, a nonprofit group. In mid-November, she wrote an email to a surgical training company saying that she could supply a human torso, according to messages reviewed by Reuters. According to Reuters Sunset Mesa Funeral Home had seen their call volume increase from 59 in 2015 to 128 in 2017. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. (McGovern said no industry regulated by the Division of Professions and Occupations has regulators assigned exclusively to it.) Koch told the judge she was sorry and took responsibility for her actions. Like many, Hanson found out about her son Frederick during a phone call from an FBI agent. Twenty-five of the brokers were for-profit corporations. A former Colorado funeral home owner has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on charges of fraud and selling body parts without permission. I see his body parts floating in space and I keep trying to grab them and put him back and I can't! Contact7 Chief Investigative Reporter Tony Kovaleski traveled to Montrose and talked to more than a half dozen family members now victims about what they describe as a scheme to profit from their pain. 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. Copyright 2019 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. A funeral service will be held on Saturday, March 4th 2023 at 10:30 AM at the First Church of the Nazarene (505 E Beatty Ave, Yuma, CO 80759). At the time of publication, no charges had been filed against the coroner, though Colorado has suspended the business licenses for both funeral homes. . The lawsuit estimates the three were making $40,000 a month from the sale of body parts. 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. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Specifics of the scope of theFBI investigation are unclear. But days went by and she couldnt reach anyone. Two funeral homes owned by Lake County Coroner Shannon Kent are under investigation after law enforcement earlier this month found an unrefrigerated body, an abandoned stillborn infant, bags of unl The. Jacque Hampson spent a year working as Hesss personal assistant. She showed me her collection of gold teeth one day, said Escher, who helped manage a former cremation-marketing business owned by Hess. Staci Kent arrived to one of those death scenes without a body bag, which spurred an argument with authorities, the indictment notes. Its tentacles go throughout not only the country but the world.. I know these are not his ashes because his body parts went all over the country, Hanson said. . She has been told parts of her husbands body were sold on the world-wide market. Prosecutors said she lied to more than 200 families, who received cremated ashes from bins mixed with the remains of different cadavers. The scope of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home and Donor Services remains unclear at this time while investigators are trying to get a handle on that issue. Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas is accused of a range of misdeeds, from not embalming or refrigerating bodies in a . Thats when E.W. According to High Country News, Hess was running the funeral home in conjunction with a non-profit called Donor Services Inc., through which she sold "donated" body parts to companies a practice referred to as body brokering. At the focal point of the FBI probe: funeral director Megan Hess, who did not return Fox News request for a comment. Why Donor Services was unable to trace Dunlaps head remains unclear. There are no ethics there when you do that. 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. The Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services building in Montrose, Colorado, U.S., December 16, 2017. The couple got dressed up in matching outfits and brought a special camera. Both Reh and Cavanagh said they want to get the ashes analyzed at the University of Colorado to see if they actually belong to their babies. Last August, police received a complaint that funds provided to. The next year,. Market data provided by Factset. Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. It described a body broker as a company that acquires dead bodies, dissects them and sells the parts for profit to medical researchers, training organizations and other buyers.. On dozens of occasions, Hess and Koch transferred bodies or body parts to third parties for research without families knowledge, according to the U.S. Justice Department. Other staff members also said that it was never disclosed to donor families that the corpses would be sold for profit a potentially illegal practice. Some former staff members of Sunset Mesa said they never heard Hess disclose to donors that the bodies would be sold for profit. Reuters could find no other operation active in the United States that houses a funeral home, crematory and body broker in the same facility and under the same ownership. In one instance, on March 10, 2019, Staci Kent was significantly delayed to the scene because the van she was using to pick up the body had a dead battery, bald tires and was buried in snow, prosecutors alleged. 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. Peck was given another six months of probation. Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors of Montrose handled the funeral . Finally, after a month, she got Staci Kent on the phone and laid into her, asking why she hadnt heard anything about her sons cremains. 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. That individual, referred to in the order only as E.W., received no notice that the cremation would be done at the Gypsum funeral home, one of six locations Kent operates in Colorados high country. Thank you, she said before ending the call. 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. SENTINEL FILE PHOTO Sisters Layna and Janet Hutt hold photos of their father, Raymond Hutt, who died in 2016 at the age of 96. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. 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. The transfers were done through Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation and Donor Services, authorities said. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. On July 2, Jeffersonville Police officials announced dozens of bodies were found decomposing inside a funeral home in the Southern Indiana city, just across the river from Louisville. It is a business and it is a profit business, added Burg. Mabry said Koch told him the glass eye couldnt be removed after Dunlaps head was severed, embalmed and shipped to researchers. As a matter of fact, the FBI has set up a hot line and e-mail address for potential victims of the businesses to contact with information. 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. Officials also found the "post-cremation remains" of 16 people, according . Body brokers like Donor Services are also known as non-transplant tissue banks. Hess is tentatively set to be sentenced in January. Staci Kent, however, wouldnt let them see the baby, Reh said. They are distinct from the organ and tissue transplant industry, which the U.S. government closely regulates. Reuters has reported in a report that you can read here that the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home of Montrose, Colorado, and its associated business, Donor Services, remains under investigation by the FBI. (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 parts.

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