Megan Hess, a former Colorado funeral home director, chopped up over 500 . In 2018, Schum got a call from FBI Special Agent John Busch, who told her that Sunset Mesa had sold not just her friend's body, but many others. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. Her funeral home site listed her credentials, including a PhD in mortuary science. The most comprehensive solution to manage all your complex and ever-expanding tax and compliance needs. 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. 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. Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. are acquisitions larger in general? The Lake County Sheriffs Office confirmed an active criminal investigation is underway. But experts say its the underground black market that also contributes to the increased demand for body parts. Twenty-five of the brokers were for-profit corporations. In February of 2018, Colorado regulators shut down the funeral home at the same time the FBI was investigating claims families did not receive the real cremains of their loved ones. At the nursing home, Eberspacher said she reminded Koch that the glass eye was supposed to be returned and suggested it be popped out there. A few days later, she was able to pick up the cremains, but like E.W., Cavanagh received no paperwork. Two Colorado funeral homes are under criminal investigation after authorities found a unrefrigerated body and learned that at least one family had received a stillborn's cremains mixed. 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. 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. The Bailey-Kent Funeral Home was the only option given to her for cremation under a certain weight, she said. The suspension order details a 2019 instance in which an unnamed individual arranged with Kents funeral home for the cremation of their stillborn child. In the late aughts, the town of Montrose, Colorado, made national headlines. After Mabry threatened to sue Hess for losing the eye, he said Hess wrote him a check: $500, a refund of the money Dunlap had paid to donate plus $5. 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 . 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. Funeral homes are required to register with the state, but spokesman Rasizer said the regulatory affairs department is not authorized to inspect mortuaries. Leave a sympathy message to the family on the memorial page of Charles Lynch to pay them a last tribute. She said she and her mother, Koch, handled about 10 cadavers a month in the back room. U.S. District Judge Christine M. Arguello on Tuesday sentenced Hess, 46, to 20 years in prison the maximum allowable for her role in a nearly decade-long scheme to sell body parts without the. But two said Hess sometimes bragged about how lucrative it was to sell bodies and body parts. All rights reserved. did not receive a contract for funeral services, and only received the cremains after several calls to Kent, the order states. "We don't even have a name for a crime this heinous. Subscribe to Funeral Director Daily and Cavanagh, Reh had an immensely difficult time reaching the Kents, the phone ringing unanswered for weeks. All they got was the urn and a death certificate no other paperwork. 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. 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. Bankman-Fried can have flip phone, limited internet while on bail, US proposes, Biden assembles team of allies to boost re-election campaign, Reporting by John Shiffman; Editing by Paul Simao and Richard Chang, Michigan judge dismisses school staff as defendants in lawsuits over mass shooting, American Airlines, flight attendants union seek mediation in contract negotiations, Macron ends Africa tour with wish for fair reset of ties, Turkey's Erdogan dismisses opposition split and says his ruling alliance will stay on same path, Turkey's pro-Kurdish party calls for opposition unity after split, In Turkey's quake-devasted city of Antakya, an antiques seller is determined to stay put, Eni agrees deal with UAE's ADNOC as Italy rebuilds relationship, Exclusive news, data and analytics for financial market professionals. 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. 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. 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. They desecrated his little body, she said. Legal Statement. Subscribe today to see what all the buzz is about. MONTROSE, Colo. A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. After reading the states suspension order this week, two women told The Denver Post that the circumstances surrounding E.W. sound eerily familiar. No one would pick up the phone. Some former staff members of Sunset Mesa said they never heard Hess disclose to donors that the bodies would be sold for profit. Ducks, Used body bags, medical gloves and other surgical equipment with dried bodily fluid on them piled on the floor, Bodily fluids leaking out of a body bag containing an individual who had not been refrigerated, A container of animal remains leaking fluids, Several bodies in refrigeration wrapped in sheets or blankets without identifying tags or paperwork, An unmarked casket containing a stillborn infant that was abandoned, the suspension order states, Paperwork scattered several feet deep on the floor. 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. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The lawsuit estimates the three were making $40,000 a month from the sale of body parts. 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. Another alleged victim said her mothers body was desecrated. Twenty-six victims described their horror at discovering what had happened to their loved ones. At the focal point of the FBI probe: funeral director Megan Hess, who did not return Fox News request for a comment. But it provided an important public service, she said. The couple got dressed up in matching outfits and brought a special camera. 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. It comes on the heels of a law passed in 2020 that. A spokeswoman for Donate LifeAmerica said in an email that Hesss firm is not a federally designated organ procurement organization and has no permission to use the Donate Life brand. In Colorado, there are few regulations to catch shoddy behavior, such as illegitimate body trading, by mortuaries. A body bag was found to be leaking bodily fluids along with a container of animal remains which was also leaking fluids. At Donor Services, her body parts business, Hess can generate a greater return on the dead, a different price list reviewed by Reuters showed. Now its possible its not my baby in the urn, Reh said. . 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. Authorities are now investigating. Reuters identified 34 body brokers that have been active across the United States during the past five years. 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. A former employee has alleged misconduct regarding the disposal of the deceased at Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas. 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. The true-crime podcast "Criminal," which covered the story in its 131st episode, reports that when Grand Junction resident Debbie Schum visited Sunset Mesa after the death of her friend in 2017, the funeral home's director, Megan Hess, told Schum that she could not provide cremation services unless Schum paid her $1,000 upfront. The other nine were structured as nonprofits, including Donor Services the only broker Reuters could find that still doubles as a funeral home. High Country News reports that, duringthe initial investigation, the FBI tested 128 samples of remains tied to Sunset Mesa. The startling discovery led to a further investigation of oversight in the funeral industry. 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. 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. Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way. The recent parade of early deaths has hit close to home. 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. Buyers ranged from educators and scientists to individuals in the medical industry. 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). The couple got dressed up in matching outfits and brought a special camera. . Further, the van was holding two other bodies that needed to be removed.. Other charges against Hess will . Escher said Koch, who embalmed and dismembered bodies, pulled teeth from some of the corpses to extract the gold in crowns or fillings. John Wayne Gacy House: Now. Pam Boyd/pboyd@vaildaily.com. Screen for heightened risk individual and entities globally to help uncover hidden risks in business relationships and human networks. Prior to the raid, the cost of purchasing an arm and shoulder was $600. "No, I did not," Hancock responded. She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. 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. You are looking at how to make money.. I thought it was something that needs to be corrected," said state Senator Larry Crowder, one of the bills sponsors. Details of Shannon Kents operations come on the heels of a Montrose funeral home that made international headlines in 2018 after an FBI raid and subsequent two-year investigation. There is even more money to be made in dissecting those bodies and selling the parts. He had been dismembered. 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. I went through a very bad crisis losing the baby, Cavanagh said. Hess made donating a body online easy. 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. Hess runs Sunset Mesa, a funeral home, and Donor Services, a body broker operation from the same building in Montrose. 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. Now the women wonder how many others might have had the same experience. Megan Hess, 46, operated the Sunset Mesa funeral home in Montrose, Colorado, alongside a body-parts entity called Donor Services, where she undertook the grisly scheme, starting in 2010. Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to fraud in July. A change of plea hearing for Koch is scheduled for July 12. 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.. In Colorado, the states organ donation program, Donor Alliance, said Hesss marketing language could be confusing to people.. All they got was the urn and a death certificate no other paperwork. Koch's central role was chopping up the bodies, court records show. Its not something that can be fixed., Hancock was notified by the FBI that her husbands body parts had been sold without her consent. Fo 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. Thank you for thinking of me.. Now its possible its not my baby in the urn, Reh 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. After receiving the cremains, E.W. Colorado regulators shut down the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in 2018. Build the strongest argument relying on authoritative content, attorney-editor expertise, and industry defining technology. GRAND JUNCTION, COLORADO: On allegations of fraud and illegally selling body parts, a former owner of a funeral home in Colorado was given a 20-year term in federal prison. ", Funeral home remains under federal investigation. Denver attorneys Mike Berg and Dave Teselle now represent more than 50 families who claim Hess and her parents victimized them. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. by Mr. Leadville | Oct 26, 2020 | Leadville News. 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. 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. I know these are not his ashes because his body parts went all over the country, Hanson said. That means almost anyone, regardless of expertise, can dissect and sell human remains. 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. Hiring funeral directors: Do you look for IQ or EQ? The conflict of interest of having a side business in body parts just leads to problems. PUBLISHED 8:21 PM CT Apr. Megan Hess, the former operator of a Montrose funeral home convicted of selling body parts without family consent, was . Each edition is filled with exclusive news, analysis and other behind-the-scenes information you wont find anywhere else. 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. 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. 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. Family and friends are welcome to leave their condolences on this memorial page and share them with the family.