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The state's Department of Regulatory Agencies. ", Funeral home remains under federal investigation. Legal Statement. Both Hess and Koch originally had pleaded not guilty to the charges. 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. Chantal Reh, an Avon resident, went through a similar experience when she suffered a stillborn birth in August 2018. 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. 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. Copyright 2019 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Funeral-home owner gets 20 years in prison for cutting up dead bodies Colorado regulators have shut down the funeral home. Now the women wonder how many others might have had the same experience. But no federal law governs the sale of cadavers or body parts for use in research or education. At Sunset Mesa, Hess charged $1,995 for a simple burial and $695 for a basic cremation, according to price lists reviewed by Reuters. Email address: Colorado Funeral Home / Body Broker Continues Under Investigation, Acquisitions, buy-outs, creative ideas. [the FBI told me] his head was sent to so and so. 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 "Hess and Koch's conduct caused immense emotional pain for the families and next of kin.". 'Tragic' cases prompt bill making it easier to inspect Colorado funeral Thank you, she said before ending the call. 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). 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. 2011 Tucson shooting - Wikipedia No federal law prohibits the buying and selling of human body parts to be used in research and education. Hess, however, charged families to donate their bodies $195, plus $300 more if relatives want cremated remains returned. Hess, 45, and her mother, Shirley Koch, operated the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose. Now the women wonder how many others might have had the same experience. Downard Funeral Home Under Investigation, ISU Involved Prosecutors recommended a sentence for Hess of 12 to 15 years. Market data provided by Factset. did not receive a contract for funeral services, and only received the cremains after several calls to Kent, the order states. seattletimes.com: Colorado funeral home owner sentenced in body sales She signed a contract with a Montrose funeral home to have his body cremated. 'None of this happened the way you think it did' - High Country News 31 decomposed bodies, cremated remains discovered during Clark - WAVE Instead of paying the standard $695 cremation fee to Colorado Cremation, Hesss former cremation marketing business, Dunlap paid Hess $495 to take his body. Former Colorado funeral home owner sentenced to 20 years for selling A human head and spine sold for $850, while a full pelvis all the way to the toes priced out at $2,850. Its not something that can be fixed., Hancock was notified by the FBI that her husbands body parts had been sold without her consent. The suspension order details a 2019 instance in which an unnamed individual arranged with Kents funeral home for the cremation of their stillborn child. But two said Hess sometimes bragged about how lucrative it was to sell bodies and body parts. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Its a profit business. "Our sweet mother, they dismembered her," Erin Smith said, selling her shoulders, knees and feet for profit. Megan Hess, a former Colorado funeral home director, chopped up over 500 . Former Colorado funeral home owner sentenced to 20 yrs for selling body and Cavanagh, Reh had an immensely difficult time reaching the Kents, the phone ringing unanswered for weeks. A funeral director who also works as a body broker could have a financial incentive to sell a body for its valuable parts rather than provide an inexpensive burial, for instance. Another alleged victim said her mothers body was desecrated. He has served as Lake County coroner since 2012 and was reelected to a four-year term in November 2018. 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. Funeral home owner who dismembered corpses, sold body parts sentenced Copyright 2019 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Staci Kent arrived to one of those death scenes without a body bag, which spurred an argument with authorities, the indictment notes. Investigators discovered 31 dead bodies, some of which were in advanced stages of decomposition. "This is the most emotionally draining. Funeral home owner who dismembered corpses, sold body parts sentenced A former employee has alleged misconduct regarding the disposal of the deceased at Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas. 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. 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. In cases like Schum's, where a family did agree to donate a body part, Hess sold more than she had permission to. Thats when E.W. Propel Funeral Partners makes acquisitions. A price list uncovered during an ongoing lawsuit against an Arizona body broker provides insight into the value of body parts and the profits that can be produced. Hoping to get answers, Denver7 visited Hess home in Montrose. Pam Boyd/pboyd@vaildaily.com. Hiring funeral directors: Do you look for IQ or EQ? It only investigates a funeral home if a complaint is filed, he said. A price quote Hess sent to an Arizona medical training lab in 2016 offered torsos for $1,000 each. Email: newsroom@coloradosun.com John Wayne Gacy House: Now. Selling body parts: Colorado's secret black market industry - KMGH Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. 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. Market data provided by Factset. some timely learning opportunities for our readers, Dont forget Low-tech to build your brand. The Daily Sentinel reportsthat Megan Hess faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison after entering the plea Tuesday in Grand Junction. Pettyjohn now lives with the memory of what happened to the body of her 26-year-old son, Brian. They were arrested in 2020 and charged with six counts of mail fraud and three counts of illegal transportation of hazardous materials. 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. felt they were too heavy to be those of a stillborn child, and submitted them for analysis. Hess' mother, Shirley Koch, has also been indicted. 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 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. and Cavanagh, Reh had an immensely difficult time reaching the Kents, the phone ringing unanswered for weeks. . 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. Colorado funeral home owner Megan Hess and her mother who sold body The news agency had also sent written questions to Hess and her attorney about Kochs alleged handling of gold teeth. A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. E.W. All rights reserved. Subscribe to Funeral Director Daily No one would pick up the phone. 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 . One of Hesss donors was Rex Dunlap, a frugal Coloradan battling brain cancer. Denver attorneys Mike Berg and Dave Teselle now represent more than 50 families who claim Hess and her parents victimized them. Body snatcher, vile, pure evil, sociopath, are the words they used when asked to describe Hess. Hess made donating a body online easy. Though Koch dissected bodies in the back room at Sunset Mesa, they claimed that the body had to be sent out for harvesting, Eberspacher said. Pictures show bodies stacked in hallways and unrefrigerated rental trucks. 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. 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. Two months later, after hearing nothing from Hess, Schum went to Sunset Mesa to retrieve her friend's ashes. 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. 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. Twenty-six victims described their horror at discovering what had happened to their loved ones. I'll never be OK.". She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. However, on Thursday, Colorado police arrested Shannon and Staci Kent after finding a decaying corpse in a funeral home they previously operated. He would not discuss the nature of those complaints or any action it may be taking. 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. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! 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. Escher said Koch, who embalmed and dismembered bodies, pulled teeth from some of the corpses to extract the gold in crowns or fillings. 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. Chantal Reh. But it provided an important public service, she said. Funeral Home Operator Jailed After Selling Body Parts of 500-Plus 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. Most brokers who sell body parts offer to cremate part of the donors body for free. State suspends operations of Leadville, Gypsum funeral homes 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. 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 Green Funeral. And much like E.W. The Unaffiliated is our twice-weekly newsletter on Colorado politics and policy. You are looking at how to make money.. These illegitimate businesses are buying and selling body parts just like anything off the shelf at Walmart, added Teselle. Legal Statement. by Mr. Leadville | Oct 26, 2020 | Leadville News. a contrarian view? The other nine were structured as nonprofits, including Donor Services the only broker Reuters could find that still doubles as a funeral home. 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 Donor Services brochure was criticized as deceptive by two major U.S. organ donation groups after Reuters shared it with them. DENVER -- To many it is simply the unthinkable. There are no ethics there when you do that.. The surgical-training companies and other firms which bought the arms, legs, heads and torsos from Hess did not know they had been fraudulently obtained, prosecutors said.