Pam Boyd/pboyd@vaildaily.com. 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. Some former staff members of Sunset Mesa said they never heard Hess disclose to donors that the bodies would be sold for profit. Thats when E.W. Like many, Hanson found out about her son Frederick during a phone call from an FBI agent. They desecrated his little body, she said. She has been told parts of her husbands body were sold on the world-wide market. 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She signed a contract with a Montrose funeral home to have his body cremated. It is also the only state that doesnt license funeral directors. 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. We were greeted at the door by her father, who told us to leave the property. Officials also found the "post-cremation remains" of 16 people, according . John Wayne Gacy House: Now. His head and his arms from his elbows to his fingers, his legs from his knees to his toes, had been removed from his body and they had been sold.. They were arrested in 2020 and charged with six counts of mail fraud and three counts of illegal transportation of hazardous materials. 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. I see his body parts floating in space and I keep trying to grab them and put him back and I can't! They were affiliated with her funeral business. . The article also tells about how Sunset Mesa Funeral Home handled some services free of charge. 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. 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. Staci Kent, however, wouldnt let them see the baby, Reh said. The couple got dressed up in matching outfits and brought a special camera. MILLERSVILLE, Pa. (WHTM) A Lancaster County funeral home and its director are facing formal disciplinary action and are under investigation by the state. 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.. [the FBI told me] his head was sent to so and so. However, there was more going on beneath the surface. 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. 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. John Wayne Gacy's house has since been torn down and replaced with a new residence, built on the same land where Gacy reportedly buried many of his victims. A funeral home in Indiana is under investigation after allegedly falling behind on processing dead bodies for an unknown period of time, but at least a few months. The federal case was triggered by a 2016-2018 Reuters investigative series about the sale of body parts in the United States, a virtually unregulated industry. 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. . The reality of body brokers profiting from the sale of body parts has made national and international headlines following government raids in Arizona and Colorado in recent years. "We don't even have a name for a crime this heinous. Why Donor Services was unable to trace Dunlaps head remains unclear. Its for the good of the world, and I like to help people, Hess said. ThinkStock via Getty Images. 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. She said she and her mother, Koch, handled about 10 cadavers a month in the back room. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. And much like E.W. 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. This whole situation, oh, I thought it was part of my past.. 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. Chantal Reh, an Avon resident, went through a similar experience when she suffered a stillborn birth in August 2018. But it provided an important public service, she said. They both plan to file complaints with the Department of Regulatory Affairs. You are looking at how to make money.. POCATELLO, Idaho Police in Pocatello are investigating a local funeral home after they said a state health inspector contacted them about the business and a badly decomposed body was found. Andrew Scheid has been the director at . 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. (If they've been left standing. Megan Hess, the owner of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, and her parents are now under investigation by the FBI. Kent also operates funeral homes in Silverthorne, Idaho Springs, Fairplay and Buena Vista. 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 . 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. I told them it didnt make sense, Mabry said. 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. 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. Koch told the judge she was sorry and took responsibility for her actions. What You Need To Know. Both have become experts on the secret industry of selling body parts on a world wide market. With a population of about 20,000, Montrose is a community surrounded by the beauty of the Rocky Mountains. 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. The most comprehensive solution to manage all your complex and ever-expanding tax and compliance needs. She showed me her collection of gold teeth one day, said Escher, who helped manage a former cremation-marketing business owned by Hess. 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 . On Oct. 13, the state shut down both the Gypsum operation and . After receiving the cremains, E.W. Body brokers sometimes market their services using language that could mislead prospective donors into believing the broker handles organ donations. 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. The FBI started looking into Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services a few months after it was discovered that both businesses were being operated out of the same building and by the same owner, according to thereport. Kent operates six funeral homes in the states high country, which also include Buena Vista, Fairplay, Idaho Springs, and Silverthorne. SCI 4Q Revenue and Year End Revenue lower than comparables, Funeral Director Daily, The business of Funeral Care. Be an organ donor, a slogan often used by organ transplant advocates. 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. Two months later, after hearing nothing from Hess, Schum went to Sunset Mesa to retrieve her friend's ashes. Mabry said Koch told him the glass eye couldnt be removed after Dunlaps head was severed, embalmed and shipped to researchers. Catch up on the days top five stories every weekday afternoon. Im not interested. A woman in Colorado has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for illegally selling body parts. I didnt believe in depression until I lost my baby, Cavanagh said. Email: newsroom@coloradosun.com Prior to the raid, the cost of purchasing an arm and shoulder was $600. No one returned her voicemails. She did. 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. (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. We did not provide our messaging to be repurposed in this brochure, and are following up, said spokeswoman Erin Dolin. A few days later, she was able to pick up the cremains, but like E.W., Cavanagh received no paperwork. 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 Other charges against Hess will . Colorado regulators shut down the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in 2018. Shannon and Staci Kent did not respond to interview requests from The Denver Post. Such a partnership may raise ethical concerns because it creates a financial incentive for the funeral home. The state's Department of Regulatory Agencies. The recent parade of early deaths has hit close to home. 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. Specifics of the scope of theFBI investigation are unclear. (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. parents are now under investigation by the FBI. Other charges against Hess will be dropped under a plea agreement, the Sentinel said. N.Y. He would not discuss the nature of those complaints or any action it may be taking. Colorado Funeral Homes. . 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. . 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. Seeing how this chapter is opening up again is incredible, its unbelievable. After a reporter asked questions about the websiteand her background, Hess removed the Add to Cart donation pages from her cremation website and cut the mention of the mortuary science degree from her online biography. 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. 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. Hancocks story started after her husband, Thomas, passed away. But days went by and she couldnt reach anyone. 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). Finally Reh and her boyfriend went to the funeral home with the expectation that they would see their baby. 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. You are looking at how to make money.. After reading the states suspension order this week, two women told The Denver Post that the circumstances surrounding E.W. sound eerily familiar. Reuters identified 34 body brokers that have been active across the United States during the past five years. Telling stories that matter in a dynamic, evolving state. (McGovern said no industry regulated by the Division of Professions and Occupations has regulators assigned exclusively to it.) They cut him up in pieces and sent them all over the place.. A funeral home in Crapaud, Prince Edward Island is under RCMP investigation for allegations of financial irregularities. There are no ethics there when you do that. 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. Fo Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the worlds largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. 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. 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. Six people were killed, including federal District Court Chief Judge John Roll; Gabe Zimmerman, one of Giffords's staffers; and a 9-year-old girl . E.W. The NBC10 Investigators found bodies inside an unlicensed funeral home in Chester, Pennsylvania. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. They both plan to file complaints with the Department of Regulatory Affairs. 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. 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. These illegitimate businesses are buying and selling body parts just like anything off the shelf at Walmart, added Teselle. It can't be fixed, said Hancock. are acquisitions larger in general? 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. This comes after a dozen . Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers. LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A Jeffersonville funeral home is under investigation after the owner allegedly got behind on processing bodies, which began stacking up for an unknown period of. No one would pick up the phone. Dunlap left one specific instruction: The glass eye that hed worn since a childhood accident should be removed and sent to his best friend. In reality, Burg added, they are just trying to get those bodies free and then they are going to chop them up themselves in parts and make money off the bodies.. Investigators discovered 31 dead bodies, some of which were in advanced stages of decomposition. some timely learning opportunities for our readers, Dont forget Low-tech to build your brand. There are currently 350 funeral home listings for the state of Colorado and we provide all the cemetery information for the state as well. Its really an underground industry that most people dont know about, said attorney Michael Burg. No one would pick up the phone. My mother and my mothers body has been desecrated.. All rights reserved. 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. In court on Tuesday, Hess declined to speak to the judge. by Mr. Leadville | Oct 26, 2020 | Leadville News. Bailey-Kent Funeral Home, pictured at left, is one of two funeral homes owned by Shannon Kent now under criminal investigation. Funeral Director Daily take: I have a hard time fathoming what may have went on at this funeral home. Since that time, according to the article, Reuters has not been able to find another business in the United States that operates a funeral home, crematory, and body broker business in the same location and operated by the same owner. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. pleaded guilty to fraud in July after a . Reuters could not independently verify this figure. His two shoulders went somewhere else. 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. Denver attorneys Mike Berg and Dave Teselle now represent more than 50 families who claim Hess and her parents victimized them. 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 The attorney, Carol Viner, asked Reuters to refrain from contacting Hess employees for any reason.. Just about any adult can run for coroner in Colorado. Hess' mother, Shirley Koch, has also been indicted. Earlier this month, authorities from both Lake and Eagle counties encountered a strong odor of decomposition when they searched the Leadville funeral home, reads. Twenty-six victims described their horror at discovering what had happened to their loved ones. By submitting your email to receive this newsletter, you agree to our. 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. Ive been violated, said Alena Holloman. There are no ethics there when you do that. 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). 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. 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. 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. The couple got dressed up in matching outfits and brought a special camera. 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. A price quote Hess sent to an Arizona medical training lab in 2016 offered torsos for $1,000 each. 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. Golden Gate's owner denies all allegations. "Hess and Koch's conduct caused immense emotional pain for the families and next of kin.". [wpforms id=436 title=true description=true]. Connie Hansons sons body parts were also allegedly sold. Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors of Montrose handled the funeral . 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. In the late aughts, the town of Montrose, Colorado, made national headlines. Seeing how this chapter is opening up again is incredible, its unbelievable. and Cavanagh, Reh had an immensely difficult time reaching the Kents, the phone ringing unanswered for weeks. She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. . It was kind of creepy.. Prosecutors recommended a sentence for Hess of 12 to 15 years. Chantal Reh, an Avon resident, went through a similar experience when she suffered a stillborn birth in August 2018. The federal inquiry began several months ago, shortly after Reuters interviewed a half-dozen workers who formerly worked for Hess. All they got was the urn and a death certificate no other paperwork. The body was identified as that of 42 . 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. Unfortunately, the attention wasn't focused on the town's natural beauty or tourism opportunities. 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.
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