Seeing how this chapter is opening up again is incredible, its unbelievable. 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. 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. The New York Times, a far-left outlet, admitted in a report that Trump's rollback of a rule from President Barack There are no ethics there when you do that. The charges defray the cost of picking up the deceased, she said in the 2016 interview. He has served as Lake County coroner since 2012 and was reelected to a four-year term in November 2018. The transfers were done through Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation and Donor Services, authorities said. 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. No one returned her voicemails. 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). Colorado regulators shut down the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in 2018. Email: newsroom@coloradosun.com And much like E.W. 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 contrarian view? 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. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. The other nine were structured as nonprofits, including Donor Services the only broker Reuters could find that still doubles as a funeral home. did not receive a contract for funeral services, and only received the cremains after several calls to Kent, the order states. 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. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers. I know these are not his ashes because his body parts went all over the country, Hanson said. Investigation into the allegations are ongoing with the Texas Funeral Services . The suspension order details a 2019 instance in which an unnamed individual arranged with Kents funeral home for the cremation of their stillborn child. 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. Jacque Hampson spent a year working as Hesss personal assistant. 06, 2021. 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. A funeral home in Crapaud, Prince Edward Island is under RCMP investigation for allegations of financial irregularities. The body was identified as that of 42 . 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. Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas is accused of a range of misdeeds, from not embalming or refrigerating bodies in a . The startling discovery led to a further investigation of oversight in the funeral industry. The Daily Sentinel reports that Megan Hess faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison after entering the plea Tuesday in Grand Junction. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, Both have become experts on the secret industry of selling body parts on a world wide market. A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. ThinkStock via Getty Images. I said I dont want to hear anymore.. Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. Before referring questions to a lawyer, Hess spoke extensively with Reuters about her body broker company. A price quote Hess sent to an Arizona medical training lab in 2016 offered torsos for $1,000 each. 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. She said, No, no, well take care of that first thing in the morning, recalled Eberspacher. 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. "It's concerning to the court that defendant Hess refuses to assume any responsibility for her conduct.". In 2020, authorities charged the two with mail fraud and illegal transportation of hazardous materials. Finally Reh and her boyfriend went to the funeral home with the expectation that they would see their baby. 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. 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. The Green Funeral. Hess and Koch also shipped bodies and body parts that tested positive for, or belonged to people who died from, infectious diseases including Hepatitis B and C, and HIV, despite certifying to buyers that the remains were disease-free, authorities said. and Cavanagh, Reh had an immensely difficult time reaching the Kents, the phone ringing unanswered for weeks. Take a look at some of Colorado's most notorious crimes. 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. The couple got dressed up in matching outfits and brought a special camera. The gruesome details of the case which authorities say included more than 500 victims drew international attention and shined a light on the . 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. According to the Johnstown, N.Y. Police Department, Brian M. Barnett, 35, who owns the since-shuttered Ehle . 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 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. Escher said Koch, who embalmed and dismembered bodies, pulled teeth from some of the corpses to extract the gold in crowns or fillings. Its tentacles go throughout not only the country but the world.. 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. Hansons box included wires and what appear to be old batteries. The couple got dressed up in matching outfits and brought a special camera. The legislation has support from the state's largest trade association for funeral homes, the Colorado Funeral Directors Association. In Colorado and most other states, it's legal for funeral homes to sell items taken from corpses, including the gold found in teeth. 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. A Colorado funeral home is under federal investigation over accusations it doubledas a body broker firm, buying and selling human body parts, aReuters special report revealedTuesday. 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. You are not looking at the full disposition (of a body). On July 2, Jeffersonville Police officials announced dozens of bodies were found decomposing inside a funeral home in the Southern Indiana city, just across the river from Louisville. 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. The state's Department of Regulatory Agencies. According to Reuters Sunset Mesa Funeral Home had seen their call volume increase from 59 in 2015 to 128 in 2017. 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. 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.. I didnt believe in depression until I lost my baby, Cavanagh said. This whole situation, oh, I thought it was part of my past.. On Oct. 13, the state shut down both the Gypsum operation and . Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. felt they were too heavy to be those of a stillborn child, and submitted them for analysis. 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. Fo 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. Hancock is one of many family members who has learned the cremains she was given by the owners of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose contained items and materials that were not her husband. 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. Neither addressed the issue about the teeth. 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. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. There is even more money to be made in dissecting those bodies and selling the parts. Megan Hess, the former operator of a Montrose funeral home convicted of selling body parts without family consent, was . Both Hess and Koch originally had pleaded not guilty to the charges. SENTINEL FILE PHOTO Sisters Layna and Janet Hutt hold photos of their father, Raymond Hutt, who died in 2016 at the age of 96. Chantal Reh, an Avon resident, went through a similar experience when she suffered a stillborn birth in August 2018. SCI 4Q Revenue and Year End Revenue lower than comparables, Funeral Director Daily, The business of Funeral Care. 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. 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. 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. Donating bodies, selling the parts: Frequently asked questions. Burg and Teselles law firm is currently suing body brokers in both Colorado and Arizona. The Colorado Sun is a journalist-owned, award-winning news outlet based in Denver that strives to cover all of Colorado so that our state our community can better understand itself. Shannon and Staci Kent did not respond to interview requests from The Denver Post. 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. 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. 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. When asked if it contained her husbands cremains, she said, I dont know.. He has served as Lake County coroner since 2012 and was reelected to a four-year term in November 2018. That's part of my nightmare. These people deserve to know why what was done to them was done to them. Her revised online biography cited her high school degree and a love of veterinary medicine.. Market data provided by Factset. 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. First published on Wed 6 Jul 2022 10.36 EDT. 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. Kent kept giving excuses, Cavanagh said. 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. 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. Sam Tabachnik is a roving reporter for The Denver Post, focusing on stories outside metro Denver. Body brokers sometimes market their services using language that could mislead prospective donors into believing the broker handles organ donations. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! Such multipurpose operations raise ethical concerns, several funeral industry veterans said. As she mourned the loss of her son, Cavanagh was referred to the Kent Funeral Home in Gypsum to do the cremation. What You Need To Know. Instead of paying the standard $695 cremation fee to Colorado Cremation, Hesss former cremation marketing business, Dunlap paid Hess $495 to take his body. Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the worlds largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. 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. In cases like Schum's, where a family did agree to donate a body part, Hess sold more than she had permission to. Below, find out where 25 of the most infamous crimes in history took place and what the locations are used for today. The owner of the funeral homes, Shannon Kent, is also Lake Countys coroner. The remains Hess returned to families were also not those of their loved ones. After reading the states suspension order this week, two women told The Denver Post that the circumstances surrounding E.W. sound eerily familiar. 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. Could, Lake County coroner turns in resignation letter, State suspends operations of Leadville, Gypsum funeral homes, 3 BULLETS TO THE BACK: The striking silence around a police, Last Season Hunters Harvested the Most Bucks in 21 Years | Outdoor Life, Republicans are barring medical boards from punishing doctors who prescribe ivermectin: report | Salon.com, Mead High School student gets musical Make-A-Wish surprise, Bruce Cassidy Defends Tuukka Rask After Tough Showing Vs. At the focal point of the FBI probe: funeral director Megan Hess, who did not return Fox News request for a comment. Authorities are now investigating. 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. 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. Catch up on the days top five stories every weekday afternoon. No such degree exists in the United States for morticians, veteran funeral directors say. Hess' mother, Shirley Koch, has also been indicted. Hoping to get answers, Denver7 visited Hess home in Montrose. Dunlap left one specific instruction: The glass eye that hed worn since a childhood accident should be removed and sent to his best friend. The Lankford Funeral Home and Family Center is under investigation by Jeffersonville Police Detective Division after 31 deceased individuals and the post-cremated remains of 16 individuals. Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to fraud in July. Market data provided by Factset. Thousands more patients could benefit from life saving and healing eye and tissue donations.. Why their loved ones were stolen from them, and they were given back dry cement or sand and told it was loved ones ashes, said Teselle. Colorado regulators have shut down the funeral home. She took orders for body parts via Hotmail, email records show. 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 federal inquiry began several months ago, shortly after Reuters interviewed a half-dozen workers who formerly worked for Hess. You are looking at how to make money.. Pettyjohn now lives with the memory of what happened to the body of her 26-year-old son, Brian. Its really an underground industry that most people dont know about, said attorney Michael Burg. Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. Prosecutors said she lied to more than 200 families, who received cremated ashes from bins mixed with the remains of different cadavers. Her 69-year-old mother, Shirley Koch, also pleaded guilty to fraud and was sentenced to 15 years. According to theDenver Post, prosecutors reached a plea agreement with Hess this year regarding a 2020 indictment against her and her mother. pleaded guilty to fraud in July after a . Torsos are a popular specimen these days, she wrote. 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. They both plan to file complaints with the Department of Regulatory Affairs. By: Tony Kovaleski Posted at 6:00 PM, Oct 31, 2019 Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors of Montrose handled the funeral . But the business arrangement is highly unusual. Golden Gate's owner denies all allegations. The NBC10 Investigators found bodies inside an unlicensed funeral home in Chester, Pennsylvania. 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. E.W. 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. 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. She signed a contract with a Montrose funeral home to have his body cremated. At the time of publication, no charges had been filed against the coroner, though Colorado has suspended the business licenses for both funeral homes. Pam Boyd/pboyd@vaildaily.com. I didnt believe in depression until I lost my baby, Cavanagh said. 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. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. 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. Ive had nightmares about it, said Fredericka Freddie Hancock. In Colorado and most other states, it also is legal for funeral homes to sell items recovered from dead bodies, such as gold dental work. Other charges against Hess will be dropped under a plea agreement, the Sentinel said. 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. Family and friends are welcome to leave their condolences on this memorial page and share them with the family. 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. Peck was given another six months of probation. In Colorado, the states organ donation program, Donor Alliance, said Hesss marketing language could be confusing to people.. Two months later, after hearing nothing from Hess, Schum went to Sunset Mesa to retrieve her friend's ashes. Few state laws provide any oversight. [the FBI told me] his head was sent to so and so. Kent also operates funeral homes in Silverthorne, Idaho Springs, Fairplay and Buena Vista. Megan Hess, a former Colorado funeral home director, chopped up over 500 . Thank you, she said before ending the call. Hess runs Sunset Mesa, a funeral home, and Donor Services, a body broker operation from the same building in Montrose. We were greeted at the door by her father, who told us to leave the property. Updated: 8:07 PM MDT September 14, 2021. Reuters began examining the Hess companies more than a year ago as part of the news agencys exploration of the human body trade, a virtually unregulated industry that largely operates in the shadows. Reuters could not independently verify this figure. (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. She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. 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. Learn more about Colorado true crime stories in the gallery below. When Reuters visited her facility in 2016, Hess said Donor Services represented just 15 percent or so of her total business. There are currently 350 funeral home listings for the state of Colorado and we provide all the cemetery information for the state as well. 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. 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. Her funeral home site listed her credentials, including a PhD in mortuary science. Hess, however, charged families to donate their bodies $195, plus $300 more if relatives want cremated remains returned. 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. The body was identified by fingerprints as Victor Akubuo, 42, from Southern .