In Colorado, there are few regulations to catch shoddy behavior, such as illegitimate body trading, by mortuaries. Officials also found the "post-cremation remains" of 16 people, according . 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 Colorado funeral home owner has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on charges of fraud and selling body parts without permission. I said I dont want to hear anymore.. A former employee has alleged misconduct regarding the disposal of the deceased at Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas. Body snatcher, vile, pure evil, sociopath, are the words they used when asked to describe Hess. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Theyre united by the pain of believing they purchased cremation services for their loved ones, knowing they never agreed to let Hess dismember the bodies. Both have become experts on the secret industry of selling body parts on a world wide market. Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to fraud in July. She took orders for body parts via Hotmail, email records show. or redistributed. Ive had nightmares about it, said Fredericka Freddie Hancock. 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. In at least dozens of instances, Hess and Koch did not follow family wishes, and neither discussed nor obtained authorization for Donor Services to transfer decedents' bodies or . Nursing Home Under Investigation After Woman Declared Dead Found Breathing at Funeral Home The incident happened at the Water's Edge Rehab and Nursing Center in Port Jefferson, the. With a population of about 20,000, Montrose is a community surrounded by the beauty of the Rocky Mountains. Enter your email address to join 3,177 readers who subscribe to all Funeral Director articles. 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. They were arrested in 2020 and charged with six counts of mail fraud and three counts of illegal transportation of hazardous materials. Thank you for thinking of me.. In mid-March, Kent received a letter of admonition" from the Office of Funeral Home and Crematory Registration after unembalmed, unrefrigerated remains were found in the Gypsum funeral home over 24 hours after the person had died. 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. Megan Hess, a former Colorado funeral home director, chopped up over 500 . After reading the states suspension order this week, two women told The Denver Post that the circumstances surrounding E.W. sound eerily familiar. (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. When Reuters reported earlier this year about the unusual twin businesses of owner Megan Hess, federal agents raided the facility and state regulators ordered the funeral home to be shut down. The charges defray the cost of picking up the deceased, she said in the 2016 interview. Bailey-Kent Funeral Home, pictured at left, is one of two funeral homes owned by Shannon Kent now under criminal investigation. It is illegal to buy or sell organs such as hearts, kidneys and tendons for transplant. Funeral Director Daily take: I have a hard time fathoming what may have went on at this funeral home. Forty-fifth President and leading 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump has been exonerated of false claims from the radical left and the Biden administration that Trump was responsible for the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, due to a rollback. Emmanuel Macron shared his vision of a renewed partnership with Africa in which it stands equal with France, as he concluded a tour where he has sought to dispel France's image as an arrogant former colonial power whilst bidding for future influence. are acquisitions larger in general? Colorado is nicknamed the "Centennial State" because when it became the 38th state, the United States turned 100 on August 1, 1876. In Colorado and most other states, it's legal for funeral homes to sell items taken from corpses, including the gold found in teeth. 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. The article also tells about how Sunset Mesa Funeral Home handled some services free of charge. 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. The Daily Sentinel reports that Megan Hess faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison after entering the plea Tuesday in Grand Junction. 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. Thats when E.W. 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. Updated: 8:07 PM MDT September 14, 2021. . No one would pick up the phone. 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 Bailey-Kent Funeral Home was the only option given to her for cremation under a certain weight, she said. 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. They were affiliated with her funeral business. 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. SCI 4Q Revenue and Year End Revenue lower than comparables, Funeral Director Daily, The business of Funeral Care. 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. 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. The name of the state is derived form the Spanish . Legal Statement. The suspension order details a 2019 instance in which an unnamed individual arranged with Kents funeral home for the cremation of their stillborn child. SENTINEL FILE PHOTO Sisters Layna and Janet Hutt hold photos of their father, Raymond Hutt, who died in 2016 at the age of 96. There are no ethics there when you do that. Twenty-five of the brokers were for-profit corporations. The Daily Sentinel Megan Hess 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. Pictures show bodies stacked in hallways and unrefrigerated rental trucks. Be an organ donor, a slogan often used by organ transplant advocates. According to Jeffersonville Police Major Isaac Parker, the department began its investigation of the Lankford Funeral Home and Family Center in Jeffersonville on Friday. felt they were too heavy to be those of a stillborn child, and submitted them for analysis. 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.. Denver attorneys Mike Berg and Dave Teselle now represent more than 50 families who claim Hess and her parents victimized them. She said she and her mother, Koch, handled about 10 cadavers a month in the back room. 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 . Access unmatched financial data, news and content in a highly-customised workflow experience on desktop, web and mobile. It comes on the heels of a law passed in 2020 that. In court on Tuesday, Hess declined to speak to the judge. did not receive a contract for funeral services, and only received the cremains after several calls to Kent, the order states. Hess, 45, and her mother, Shirley Koch, operated the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose. Instead of paying the standard $695 cremation fee to . She told Contact7 Investigates that she heard bodies being dismembered. 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. 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. His two shoulders went somewhere else. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. 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. . a contrarian view? by Mr. Leadville | Oct 26, 2020 | Leadville News. . 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. The body was identified as that of 42 . 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. 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. 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. A human head and spine sold for $850, while a full pelvis all the way to the toes priced out at $2,850. The funeral home's owners, Megan Hess, 43, and her mother . Further, the van was holding two other bodies that needed to be removed.. 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 industry leader for online information for tax, accounting and finance professionals. Two Colorado funeral homes are under criminal investigation after authorities found a unrefrigerated body and learned that at least one family had received a stillborns cremains mixed with portions of adult remains as well as metal fragments. On Oct. 13, the state shut down both the Gypsum operation and . We were greeted at the door by her father, who told us to leave the property. 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. Kent is already facing charges of perjury and official misconduct for sending wife Staci Kent, who is not authorized to act as a deputy coroner, to death scenes on at least three occasions, according to a September 2019 grand jury indictment. . They both plan to file complaints with the Department of Regulatory Affairs. Take a look at some of Colorado's most notorious crimes. 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. First published on Wed 6 Jul 2022 10.36 EDT. The conflict of interest of having a side business in body parts just leads to problems, said Steve Palmer, a funeral director in Cottonwood, Arizona, and former member of the policy board at the National Funeral Directors Association. She did. Prior to the raid, the cost of purchasing an arm and shoulder was $600. Torsos are a popular specimen these days, she wrote. 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. 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. They are struggling with claims she created a product with a power saw and angry that she ultimately profited from the sale of arms, heads legs, torsos even whole bodies. 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 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. None of the former employees or associates Reuters interviewed worked directly for the body broker business. MONTROSE, Colo. A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. And much like E.W. Copyright 2019 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Other charges against Hess will . "No, I did not," Hancock responded. 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. 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. 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. The Bailey-Kent Funeral Home was the only option given to her for cremation under a certain weight, she said. There are people and businesses who spend millions and millions of dollars," Teselle added, "trafficking in these body parts as if they were nothing more than cans of soup or loaves of bread., I was pretty shocked, said Jacque Hampson, a former employee of the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose. Megan Hess, the former operator of a Montrose funeral home convicted of selling body parts without family consent, was . Subscribe today to see what all the buzz is about. 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. While Sunset Mesa legally is permitted to own and operate both businesses, Reuters found that there was no other active instance where a funeral home, crematory and body broker had the same owner and were in the same facility. Email address: Colorado Funeral Home / Body Broker Continues Under Investigation, Acquisitions, buy-outs, creative ideas. 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. Subscribe to Funeral Director Daily Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. There is even more money to be made in dissecting those bodies and selling the parts. ", Funeral home remains under federal investigation. 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. (McGovern said no industry regulated by the Division of Professions and Occupations has regulators assigned exclusively to it.) 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. Few state laws provide any oversight. Drop us a note at [email protected]. Pam Boyd/[email protected]. Paul Hawthorne, Getty Images. 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. Propel Funeral Partners makes acquisitions. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. Sam Tabachnik is a roving reporter for The Denver Post, focusing on stories outside metro Denver. 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.