Twenty-six victims described their horror at discovering what had happened to their loved ones. It can't be fixed, said Hancock. Chantal Reh, an Avon resident, went through a similar experience when she suffered a stillborn birth in August 2018. The body was identified by fingerprints as Victor Akubuo, 42, from Southern . "We don't even have a name for a crime this heinous. 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. "This is the most emotionally draining case I have ever experienced on the bench," U.S. District Judge Christine M. Arguello said during Tuesday's sentencing hearing in Grand Junction, Colorado. There is even more money to be made in dissecting those bodies and selling the parts. When Reuters visited her facility in 2016, Hess said Donor Services represented just 15 percent or so of her total business. Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way. (If they've been left standing. It is the only state in the country that does not license funeral home and. The Denver attorney is referring to the limited and nonexistent regulation nationwide and worldwide regarding the procurement and selling of bodies and body parts. Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the worlds largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. They desecrated his little body, she said. All rights reserved. some timely learning opportunities for our readers, Dont forget Low-tech to build your brand. I said I dont want to hear anymore.. Reuters identified 34 body brokers that have been active across the United States during the past five years. 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. Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. It was kinda creepy., It is totally unregulated, said Burg. 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. Now its possible its not my baby in the urn, Reh said. Colorado does not regulate body brokers. In court on Tuesday, Hess declined to speak to the judge. 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. Catch up on the days top five stories every weekday afternoon. Colorado regulators shut down the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in 2018. Body brokers sometimes market their services using language that could mislead prospective donors into believing the broker handles organ donations. They both plan to file complaints with the Department of Regulatory Affairs. The Daily Sentinel Megan Hess No one would pick up the phone. Meme Eberspacher, Dunlaps niece, was at his bedside the night that Dunlap died. 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. SENTINEL FILE PHOTO Sisters Layna and Janet Hutt hold photos of their father, Raymond Hutt, who died in 2016 at the age of 96. 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. And much like E.W. 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. 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. While operating Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, Colorado, Hess and Koch sold remains of the deceased for body broker services without family consent and gave families ashes that were. 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. 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 . Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas is accused of a range of misdeeds, from not embalming or refrigerating bodies in a . Hess continues running a dual operation. Hess, 45, and her mother, Shirley Koch, operated the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose. (Google). It comes on the heels of a law passed in 2020 that. 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. Kent also operates funeral homes in Silverthorne, Idaho Springs, Fairplay and Buena Vista. And as of. At Sunset Mesa, Hess charged $1,995 for a simple burial and $695 for a basic cremation, according to price lists reviewed by Reuters. They are distinct from the organ and tissue transplant industry, which the U.S. government closely regulates. Specifics of the scope of theFBI investigation are unclear. 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. 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. 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. In an interview in 2016, she described Donor Services as a small, family business. 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. But it provided an important public service, she said. You are looking at how to make money.. In addition, a lawsuit has been filed by Shirley Hollenback and her daughter alleging that the remains she received purported to be the cremation ashes of her husband are somebody elses remains and not those of her husband. This whole situation, oh, I thought it was part of my past.. Koch told the judge she was sorry and took responsibility for her actions. 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. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Investigators discovered 31 dead bodies, some of which were in advanced stages of decomposition. She said, No, no, well take care of that first thing in the morning, recalled Eberspacher. Updated: 8:07 PM MDT September 14, 2021. or redistributed. A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. A Colorado funeral home is under federal investigation over accusations it doubled as a body broker firm, buying and selling human body parts, a Reuters special report revealed Tuesday. Chantal Reh. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers. Her 69-year-old mother, Shirley Koch, also pleaded guilty to fraud and was sentenced to 15 years. (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. Kent kept giving excuses, Cavanagh said. And it is not against the law to operate a so-called body broker firm from the same facility that houses a funeral home and crematory. Thousands more patients could benefit from life saving and healing eye and tissue donations.. 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. Both have become experts on the secret industry of selling body parts on a world wide market. 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. E.W. Mabry said Koch told him the glass eye couldnt be removed after Dunlaps head was severed, embalmed and shipped to researchers. Peck was given another six months of probation. 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. This all began when a severely decomposed body was reported by a state health inspector. Weeks passed before Hess told him that Donor Services couldnt retrieve the glass eye because the company couldnt locate the researcher who received Dunlaps head, Mabry said. E.W. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. 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. Finally Reh and her boyfriend went to the funeral home with the expectation that they would see their baby. "No, I did not," Hancock responded. The lawsuit claims the three sold torsos for $1,000, a pelvis with upper legs for $1,200. The most comprehensive solution to manage all your complex and ever-expanding tax and compliance needs. 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. 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. 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. He had been dismembered. According to theDenver Post, prosecutors reached a plea agreement with Hess this year regarding a 2020 indictment against her and her mother. GYPSUM The operating license for Kent Funeral Home in Gypsum has been summarily suspended by the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies following an investigation that revealed disturbing conditions at an associated funeral home in Leadville. 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. Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors of Montrose handled the funeral . This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, 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. She took orders for body parts via Hotmail, email records show. 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. Finally Reh and her boyfriend went to the funeral home with the expectation that they would see their baby. Pam Boyd/pboyd@vaildaily.com. 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. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. Megan Hess, the owner of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, and her parents are now under investigation by the FBI. The New York Times, a far-left outlet, admitted in a report that Trump's rollback of a rule from President Barack Such multipurpose operations raise ethical concerns, several funeral industry veterans said. 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. Separate from the FBI inquiry, Reuters has learned that Colorado state funeral regulators are investigating Hess's funeral home, Sunset Mesa. But the business arrangement is highly unusual. Ive been violated, said Alena Holloman. 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. 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. Prosecutors recommended a sentence for Hess of 12 to 15 years. In Colorado and most other states, it's legal for funeral homes to sell items taken from corpses, including the gold found in teeth. Legal Statement. Ive had nightmares about it, said Fredericka Freddie Hancock. First published on Wed 6 Jul 2022 10.36 EDT. Hoping to get answers, Denver7 visited Hess home in Montrose. Funeral homes owned by a Colorado coroner under, Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Get to know all 17 Denver mayor candidates , Funeral homes owned by a Colorado coroner under investigation following discovery of unrefrigerated body, unlabeled cremains, Owners of Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors indicted for illegally selling human body parts, Former Montrose funeral home director accused of selling body parts loses state insurance license, This really has shattered me: Betrayal, anger, grief haunt victims of Colorado funeral home that sold loved ones body parts without permission, Denver weather: Strong winds and low humidity will elevate fire concerns Sunday, Vehicle owners can register for car theft deterrent program DenverTrack, Data breach of DPS computer servers affects all district employees, officials say, Colorado psychologists gain authority to prescribe mental health medication, Colorado property owners to face astronomical tax increases next year, After School Satan Club launching first Colorado chapter, but organizer promises "we are not devil worshippers", PHOTOS: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band play Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado landlords say eviction-protection proposal could make dropping problem renters too hard, No more greasy pizza boxes, paper towels or takeout containers in Front Range compost bins come April 1, 5 can't-miss menus for Denver Restaurant Week, After teen's death, Denver East High students walk out to advocate for gun legislation, Boulder house where JonBenet Ramsey was found dead listed for sale for almost $7M, Metro Denver housing market crosses firmly into negative territory in February, Kiszla: With Brendan Rodgers down and out, Kris Bryant could become $182 million face of worst team in Rockies history, As Adderall shortage continues, DEA plans to limit some telemedicine prescriptions, House where JonBenet Ramsey was found dead listed for sale for almost $7M, Columbia University permanently drops SAT, ACT admissions requirement, The Waterbed Doctor: California retailer lays claim to retro bed with nearly 40 years of service, sales, Felonious Florida podcast: Missing teenage girl leads to several cases of child sex trafficking, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information, 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. Its a community struggling to understand the stories and the accusations about what happened in the back room at Sunset Mesa. heres a recap of our months top stories, Carriage Services reports Services and Revenue drops in 2022. 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. No one returned her voicemails. 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.. 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. Reuters could not independently verify this figure. 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. According to Jeffersonville Police Major Isaac Parker, the department began its investigation of the Lankford Funeral Home and Family Center in Jeffersonville on Friday. 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. Koch's central role was chopping up the bodies, court records show. As she mourned the loss of her son, Cavanagh was referred to the Kent Funeral Home in Gypsum to do the cremation. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. 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. Kent also operates funeral homes in Silverthorne, Idaho Springs, Fairplay and Buena Vista. We did not provide our messaging to be repurposed in this brochure, and are following up, said spokeswoman Erin Dolin. 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. He would not discuss the nature of those complaints or any action it may be taking. Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to fraud in July. 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. Andrew Scheid has been the director at . (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. Copyright 2019 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. A body bag was found to be leaking bodily fluids along with a container of animal remains which was also leaking fluids. Family and friends are welcome to leave their condolences on this memorial page and share them with the family. 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. 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. Sunset Mesas operators, Megan Hess and Shirley Koch, were indicted by a federal grand jury in March for allegedly shipping body parts all over the world against the will of family members, who found out years later that the ashes in their homes were not those of their loved ones. The price list is from an Arizona company shut down after an FBI raid five years ago. DALLAS The Texas Funeral Service Commission says it has opened an investigation into allegations of the mishandling of corpses at one of the most high-profile mortuaries in the state. Kent kept giving excuses, Cavanagh said. But experts say its the underground black market that also contributes to the increased demand for body parts. 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. Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. 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. Its for the good of the world, and I like to help people, Hess said. The NBC10 Investigators found bodies inside an unlicensed funeral home in Chester, Pennsylvania. 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. 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 investigation of Kents funeral homes began in February after the sheriffs office received a complaint by a client regarding the handling of human remains. Colorado Ordway Funeral Homes Eaton Family Funeral Home Eaton Family Funeral Home in Ordway 202 E 3rd St Ordway, CO 81063 (719) 267-4221 Click to show location on map Zoom About Eaton Family Funeral Home We understand that losing a loved one can be a very stressful time. SCI 4Q Revenue and Year End Revenue lower than comparables, Funeral Director Daily, The business of Funeral Care. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. Market data provided by Factset. Colorado regulators shut Sunset Mesa down in February 2018, KMGH-TV reported. 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. 06, 2021. 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. 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. I just had the impression that something wasnt right all along. He said neither Hess nor Koch told him that his friends body parts would be sold. But days went by and she couldnt reach anyone. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. This comes after a dozen . 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. He has served as Lake County coroner since 2012 and was reelected to a four-year term in November 2018. It is illegal to buy or sell organs such as hearts, kidneys and tendons for transplant. Records from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies showthis was not the first time Kent has been in the crosshairs of state regulators. MONTROSE, Colo. A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. 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). Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. All they got was the urn and a death certificate no other paperwork. 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.. Donor Services has circulated a brochure that reads: Be a hero. A change of plea hearing for Koch is scheduled for July 12. A Colorado funeral home operator accused of illegally selling body parts and giving clients fake ashes has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. A judge sentenced a Colorado funeral-home owner who carved up corpses and sold parts of them without families' permission to 20 years in prison on Tuesday, according to the Department of Justice. Reuters Investigates offers several ways to securely contact our reporters. None of the former employees or associates Reuters interviewed worked directly for the body broker business. She was sold, embalmed and shipped out within just a few hours of her death, said Holloman. As funeral directors, while we dont do everything perfect, we should have the best interest of our client families at heart. With a population of about 20,000, Montrose is a community surrounded by the beauty of the Rocky Mountains. 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. 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 . When Schum hesitated, Hess said she would waive the cremation fee if Schum agreed to donate her friend's bladder to science. (McGovern said no industry regulated by the Division of Professions and Occupations has regulators assigned exclusively to it.) 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.. Body snatcher, vile, pure evil, sociopath, are the words they used when asked to describe Hess. Pictures show bodies stacked in hallways and unrefrigerated rental trucks. and Cavanagh, Reh had an immensely difficult time reaching the Kents, the phone ringing unanswered for weeks. Shannon and Staci Kent did not respond to interview requests from The Denver Post. 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. 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.. 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. She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. Twenty-five of the brokers were for-profit corporations. After receiving the cremains, E.W. You could hear the machine going, she told Kovaleski. Feb 4, 2023, 5:26 PM SGT. 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At the time of publication, no charges had been filed against the coroner, though Colorado has suspended the business licenses for both funeral homes. An agent with the FBI has interviewed at least four former employees who worked for funeral director and body broker Megan Hess, seeking information about how she operates her businesses, the former workers told Reuters. Thats when E.W. The focus and extent of the federal probe into the Hess operation is unclear, and the FBI also declined to comment. Burg and Teselles law firm is currently suing body brokers in both Colorado and Arizona. No one would pick up the phone. She said that one month she got about $40,000 from selling donated bodies. Chantal Reh, an Avon resident, went through a similar experience when she suffered a stillborn birth in August 2018. The Daily Sentinel reportsthat Megan Hess faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison after entering the plea Tuesday in Grand Junction. They cut him up in pieces and sent them all over the place.. This compassionate help is the essence of what we do.