Further, the van was holding two other bodies that needed to be removed.. 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. Charles "Paul" Lynch Obituary (1953 - 2023) | Yuma, Colorado Do You Remember the Dark History of This Colorado Funeral Home? Copyright 2019 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Instead of paying the standard $695 cremation fee to Colorado Cremation, Hesss former cremation marketing business, Dunlap paid Hess $495 to take his body. Connie Hansons sons body parts were also allegedly sold. Two months later, after hearing nothing from Hess, Schum went to Sunset Mesa to retrieve her friend's ashes. Denver attorneys Mike Berg and Dave Teselle now represent more than 50 families who claim Hess and her parents victimized them. 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. Megan Hess & Shirley Koch Sunset Mesa Funeral Home body parts scam Reuters has reported in a report that you can read here that the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home of Montrose, Colorado, and its associated business, Donor Services, remains under investigation by the FBI. Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the worlds largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to fraud in July. He had been dismembered. 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. More Reuters investigations and long-form narratives, Got a confidential news tip? 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. In 2020, authorities charged the two with mail fraud and illegal transportation of hazardous materials. Colorado Funeral Home Caught Selling Bodies Intended For Cremation 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. Body brokers like Donor Services are also known as non-transplant tissue banks. 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. But it provided an important public service, she said. Montrose, Colorado: A former funeral home operator pleads guilty to You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! a contrarian view? The owners of that funeral home are facing charges of desecrating human remains more than four months after investigators found the body, which had been stored in a non-refrigerated room for years. Hess runs Sunset Mesa, a funeral home, and Donor Services, a body broker operation from the same building in Montrose. 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. 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. As funeral directors, while we dont do everything perfect, we should have the best interest of our client families at heart. Telling stories that matter in a dynamic, evolving state. 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. Kent kept giving excuses, Cavanagh said. 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. After receiving the cremains, E.W. Colorado regulators can now inspect funeral homes and crematories without owners' permission The state has long had some of the laxest laws in the nation surrounding funeral homes Joe. 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. Colorado funeral home owner Megan Hess and her mother who sold body 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. She signed a contract with a Montrose funeral home to have his body cremated. 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. 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. He has served as Lake County coroner since 2012 and was reelected to a four-year term in November 2018. Burg and Teselles law firm is currently suing body brokers in both Colorado and Arizona. No one returned her voicemails. Kent also operates funeral homes in Silverthorne, Idaho Springs, Fairplay and Buena Vista. Unfortunately, the attention wasn't focused on the town's natural beauty or tourism opportunities. "It's concerning to the court that defendant Hess refuses to assume any responsibility for her conduct.". . Its a profit business. 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. 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. 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 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.. At Donor Services, her body parts business, Hess can generate a greater return on the dead, a different price list reviewed by Reuters showed. However, on Thursday, Colorado police arrested Shannon and Staci Kent after finding a decaying corpse in a funeral home they previously operated. 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. The body was identified by fingerprints as Victor Akubuo, 42, from Southern . Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors of Montrose handled the funeral . Kent also operates funeral homes in Silverthorne, Idaho Springs, Fairplay and Buena Vista. This all began when a severely decomposed body was reported by a state health inspector. 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. Her 69-year-old mother, Shirley Koch, also pleaded guilty to fraud and was sentenced to 15 years. 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. Investigators discovered 31 dead bodies, some of which were in advanced stages of decomposition. It is illegal in the United States to sell organs such as hearts, kidneys and tendons for transplant; they must be donated. The remains Hess returned to families were also not those of their loved ones. Police investigating Pocatello funeral home - KTVB High Country News reports that, duringthe initial investigation, the FBI tested 128 samples of remains tied to Sunset Mesa. 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 Daily Sentinel reportsthat Megan Hess faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison after entering the plea Tuesday in Grand Junction. 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. Thats when E.W. 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. 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. by Mr. Leadville | Oct 26, 2020 | Leadville News. Hess' mother, Shirley Koch, has also been indicted. The Bailey-Kent Funeral Home was the only option given to her for cremation under a certain weight, she said. 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. Arnold Roger Tesnow Obituary (1944 - 2023) | Colorado Springs, Colorado 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 . It only investigates a funeral home if a complaint is filed, he said. Neither addressed the issue about the teeth. . She was sold, embalmed and shipped out within just a few hours of her death, said Holloman. Instead, the media was interested in the dark history behind the town's funeral home, Sunset Mesa. According to Reuters Sunset Mesa Funeral Home had seen their call volume increase from 59 in 2015 to 128 in 2017. The federal inquiry began several months ago, shortly after Reuters interviewed a half-dozen workers who formerly worked for Hess. Its a community struggling to understand the stories and the accusations about what happened in the back room at Sunset Mesa. A spokeswoman for Donate LifeAmerica said in an email that Hesss firm is not a federally designated organ procurement organization and has no permission to use the Donate Life brand. A former employee has alleged misconduct regarding the disposal of the deceased at Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. 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. 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 Now the women wonder how many others might have had the same experience. Feb 4, 2023, 5:26 PM SGT. 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. Bodies Found in Unlicensed Funeral Home: Police And as of. The owner of the funeral homes, Shannon Kent, is also Lake Countys coroner. Former Colorado funeral home owner sentenced to 20 years for selling It comes on the heels of a law passed in 2020 that. I told them it didnt make sense, Mabry said. Specifics of the scope of theFBI investigation are unclear. Montrose funeral home owner who allegedly sold - The Colorado Sun She said that one month she got about $40,000 from selling donated bodies. (McGovern said no industry regulated by the Division of Professions and Occupations has regulators assigned exclusively to it.) Market data provided by Factset. Colorado regulators can now inspect funeral homes and crematories I thought it was something that needs to be corrected," said state Senator Larry Crowder, one of the bills sponsors. A human head and spine sold for $850, while a full pelvis all the way to the toes priced out at $2,850. But two said Hess sometimes bragged about how lucrative it was to sell bodies and body parts. Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to fraud in July. Records from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies showthis was not the first time Kent has been in the crosshairs of state regulators. She took orders for body parts via Hotmail, email records show. No one would pick up the phone. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, 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. 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. 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. 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. GRAND JUNCTION, COLORADO: On allegations of fraud and illegally selling body parts, a former owner of a funeral home in Colorado was given a 20-year term in federal prison. Authorities are now investigating. 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. 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 . These people deserve to know why what was done to them was done to them. Meme Eberspacher, Dunlaps niece, was at his bedside the night that Dunlap died. 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. That means almost anyone, regardless of expertise, can dissect and sell human remains. 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. 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. The Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services building in Montrose, Colorado, U.S., December 16, 2017. A funeral service will be held on Saturday, March 4th 2023 at 10:30 AM at the First Church of the Nazarene (505 E Beatty Ave, Yuma, CO 80759). did not receive a contract for funeral services, and only received the cremains after several calls to Kent, the order states. There is even more money to be made in dissecting those bodies and selling the parts. 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. 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. Finally Reh and her boyfriend went to the funeral home with the expectation that they would see their baby. "This is the most emotionally draining. felt they were too heavy to be those of a stillborn child, and submitted them for analysis. 2011 Tucson shooting - Wikipedia Colorado regulators shut down the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in 2018. "Our sweet mother, they dismembered her," Erin Smith said, selling her shoulders, knees and feet for profit. "We don't even have a name for a crime this heinous. 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. My mother and my mothers body has been desecrated.. The article also tells about how Sunset Mesa Funeral Home handled some services free of charge. This whole situation, oh, I thought it was part of my past.. 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. . Funeral home investigation: What to know about the discovery of 31 What You Need To Know. 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. Escher said Koch, who embalmed and dismembered bodies, pulled teeth from some of the corpses to extract the gold in crowns or fillings. Suppliers of transplant tissue must obtain federal recognition and operate as charities. 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. Colorado regulators have shut down the funeral home. But days went by and she couldnt reach anyone. 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. Colorado is nicknamed the "Centennial State" because when it became the 38th state, the United States turned 100 on August 1, 1876. Email address: Colorado Funeral Home / Body Broker Continues Under Investigation, Acquisitions, buy-outs, creative ideas. 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. Colorado funeral home owners sentenced to federal prison for selling 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. I said I dont want to hear anymore.. Eaton Family Funeral Home Ordway, Colorado - imortuary.com Separate from the FBI inquiry, Reuters has learned that Colorado state funeral regulators are investigating Hesss funeral home, Sunset Mesa. Jacque Hampson spent a year working as Hesss personal assistant. 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. Downard Funeral Home Under Investigation, ISU Involved Megan Hess, a former Colorado funeral home director, chopped up over 500 . Her revised online biography cited her high school degree and a love of veterinary medicine.. The home, located at 8215 W. Summerdale Ave., was sold for just shy of $400,000 in May 2021. Im not interested. I didnt believe in depression until I lost my baby, Cavanagh said. Market data provided by Factset. Former Colorado funeral home owner sentenced to 20 years for selling He covers everything from stolen art and towing to mobile homes and quirky stories that defy category. This is a way we can eliminate or alleviate the black market on body parts, Crowder added. 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. 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. We were greeted at the door by her father, who told us to leave the property. She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. FBI scrutinizes Colorado funeral home with side business selling body The transfers were done through Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation and Donor Services, authorities said. Hess, however, charged families to donate their bodies $195, plus $300 more if relatives want cremated remains returned. I didnt believe in depression until I lost my baby, Cavanagh said. The 20-year term was the maximum allowed under law. Shannon and Staci Kent did not respond to interview requests from The Denver Post. 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. All they got was the urn and a death certificate no other paperwork. Email: newsroom@coloradosun.com Chantal Reh, an Avon resident, went through a similar experience when she suffered a stillborn birth in August 2018. Twenty-five of the brokers were for-profit corporations. 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. Last August, police received a complaint that funds provided to.