A woman in Colorado has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for illegally selling body parts. Other charges against Hess will . 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. Another alleged victim said her mothers body was desecrated. 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. In an interview in 2016, she described Donor Services as a small, family business. Megan Hess, the owner of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, and her parents are now under investigation by the FBI. (If they've been left standing. 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. 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. Heads went for $500 and $250 for a knee prices at significantly discounted rates compared to other body brokers. Paul Hawthorne, Getty Images. In court on Tuesday, Hess declined to speak to the judge. Body brokers sometimes market their services using language that could mislead prospective donors into believing the broker handles organ donations. 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. Colorado does not regulate body brokers. 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. Prior to the raid, the cost of purchasing an arm and shoulder was $600. But it provided an important public service, she said. The Daily Sentinel reports that Megan Hess faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison after entering the plea Tuesday in Grand Junction. N.Y. Separate from the FBI inquiry, Reuters has learned that Colorado state funeral regulators are investigating Hess's funeral home, Sunset Mesa. Megan Hess, the former operator of a Montrose funeral home convicted of selling body parts without family consent, was . 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. 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 transfers were done through Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation and Donor Services, authorities said. Hancock is one of more than five dozen family members currently suing the family that operated the now shut-down Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose. MONTROSE, Colo. A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. 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. 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. Prosecutors recommended a sentence for Hess of 12 to 15 years. E.W. 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. An indictment filed last week by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Denver alleges 43-year-old Megan Hess, of Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services, harvested body parts from hundreds of dead people without any authorization from their families. And as of. As funeral directors, while we dont do everything perfect, we should have the best interest of our client families at heart. But days went by and she couldnt reach anyone. According to Reuters Sunset Mesa Funeral Home had seen their call volume increase from 59 in 2015 to 128 in 2017. Kent also operates funeral homes in Silverthorne, Idaho Springs, Fairplay and Buena Vista. Shannon and Staci Kent, 45, of Leadville were charged on Friday with attempted tampering with a deceased human body. 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. Bailey-Kent Funeral Home, pictured at left, is one of two funeral homes owned by Shannon Kent now under criminal investigation. I didnt believe in depression until I lost my baby, Cavanagh said. You could hear the machine going, she told Kovaleski. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. [the FBI told me] his head was sent to so and so. At the time of publication, no charges had been filed against the coroner, though Colorado has suspended the business licenses for both funeral homes. Funeral Director Daily take: I have a hard time fathoming what may have went on at this funeral home. . After an extensive investigation into this and dozens of similar cases, federal prosecutors on Tuesday charged the owners of the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, Colorado, on suspicion of illegally brokering the body parts of deceased individuals they were hired to cremate. 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. All rights reserved. Legal Statement. After reading the states suspension order this week, two women told The Denver Post that the circumstances surrounding E.W. sound eerily familiar. Authorities also uncovered multiple refrigerated bodies which were wrapped in sheets or blankets but did not have any tags or paperwork identifying them. Last August, police received a complaint that funds provided to. felt they were too heavy to be those of a stillborn child, and submitted them for analysis. These people deserve to know why what was done to them was done to them. The lawsuit estimates the three were making $40,000 a month from the sale of body parts. Why Donor Services was unable to trace Dunlaps head remains unclear. The remains Hess returned to families were also not those of their loved ones. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers. The charges defray the cost of picking up the deceased, she said in the 2016 interview. The Bailey-Kent Funeral Home was the only option given to her for cremation under a certain weight, she said. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. A change of plea hearing for Koch is scheduled for July 12. Its a community struggling to understand the stories and the accusations about what happened in the back room at Sunset Mesa. 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. I didnt believe in depression until I lost my baby, Cavanagh said. 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. According to Jeffersonville Police Major Isaac Parker, the department began its investigation of the Lankford Funeral Home and Family Center in Jeffersonville on Friday. 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. It is illegal in the United States to sell organs such as hearts, kidneys and tendons for transplant; they must be donated. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. Pictures show bodies stacked in hallways and unrefrigerated rental trucks. Connie Hansons sons body parts were also allegedly sold. . No one returned her voicemails. The recent parade of early deaths has hit close to home. I told them it didnt make sense, Mabry said. Records from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies showthis was not the first time Kent has been in the crosshairs of state regulators. 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. MONTROSE, Colorado The Federal Bureau of Investigation is interviewing former employees of a funeral home whose owner runs a side business on the same premises selling human body parts. As she mourned the loss of her son, Cavanagh was referred to the Kent Funeral Home in Gypsum to do the cremation. I went through a very bad crisis losing the baby, Cavanagh said. 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. The Denver attorney is referring to the limited and nonexistent regulation nationwide and worldwide regarding the procurement and selling of bodies and 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. 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. a contrarian view? I see his body parts floating in space and I keep trying to grab them and put him back and I can't! 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. Now its possible its not my baby in the urn, Reh said. At the focal point of the FBI probe: funeral director Megan Hess, who did not return Fox News request for a comment. Holloman now deals with the guilt of knowing details of what happened to her moms body. The couple got dressed up in matching outfits and brought a special camera. 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. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, Drop us a note at tips@coloradosun.com. 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. But no federal law governs the sale of cadavers or body parts for use in research or education. [wpforms id=436 title=true description=true]. The body was identified as that of 42 . Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. 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. 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. Now its possible its not my baby in the urn, Reh said. A funeral home in Crapaud, Prince Edward Island is under RCMP investigation for allegations of financial irregularities. Shannon and Staci Kent did not respond to interview requests from The Denver Post. 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. 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The price list is from an Arizona company shut down after an FBI raid five years ago. According to Reuters Sunset Mesa Funeral Home had seen their call volume increase from 59 in 2015 to 128 in 2017. 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. Its a profit 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. 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. Updated: 8:07 PM MDT September 14, 2021. The Justice Department did not respond to Fox News' request for comment. The state's Department of Regulatory Agencies. 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. 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. Hess committed crimes, prosecutors said, when she defrauded relatives of the deceased by lying about cremations and by dissecting bodies and selling them without permission. 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. A former Colorado funeral home operator has pleaded guilty to stealing and then selling hundreds of human bodies or body parts to people who were buying the remains for scientific, medical or . The federal inquiry began several months ago, shortly after Reuters interviewed a half-dozen workers who formerly worked for Hess. A few days later, she was able to pick up the cremains, but like E.W., Cavanagh received no paperwork. This whole situation, oh, I thought it was part of my past.. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. or redistributed. That's part of my nightmare. Authorities are now investigating. A body bag was found to be leaking bodily fluids along with a container of animal remains which was also leaking fluids. 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. 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 . 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 "Our sweet mother, they dismembered her," Erin Smith said, selling her shoulders, knees and feet for profit. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. 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. 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. Just about any adult can run for coroner in Colorado. ", Funeral home remains under federal investigation. Copyright 2019 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. 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. Colorado regulators shut down the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in 2018. 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. Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors of Montrose handled the funeral . Bailey-Kent Funeral Home, pictured at left, is one of two funeral homes owned by Shannon Kent now under criminal investigation. 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. He has served as Lake County coroner since 2012 and was reelected to a four-year term in November 2018. Prosecutors said she lied to more than 200 families, who received cremated ashes from bins mixed with the remains of different cadavers. She told Contact7 Investigates that she heard bodies being dismembered. 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. 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. It was kind of creepy.. 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. I know these are not his ashes because his body parts went all over the country, Hanson said. That means almost anyone, regardless of expertise, can dissect and sell human remains. This all began when a severely decomposed body was reported by a state health inspector. 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. Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to fraud in July. Burg and Teselles law firm is currently suing body brokers in both Colorado and Arizona. Hancocks story started after her husband, Thomas, passed away. Funeral homes are required to register with the state, but spokesman Rasizer said the regulatory affairs department is not authorized to inspect mortuaries. Ive been violated, said Alena Holloman. . 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). Below, find out where 25 of the most infamous crimes in history took place and what the locations are used for today. Jacque Hampson spent a year working as Hesss personal assistant. Separate from the FBI inquiry, Reuters has learned that Colorado state funeral regulators are investigating Hesss funeral home, Sunset Mesa. Both Hess and Koch originally had pleaded not guilty to the charges. 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. Colorado regulators have shut down the funeral home. But days went by and she couldnt reach anyone. 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. 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. We did not provide our messaging to be repurposed in this brochure, and are following up, said spokeswoman Erin Dolin. The other nine were structured as nonprofits, including Donor Services the only broker Reuters could find that still doubles as a funeral home. Chantal Reh, an Avon resident, went through a similar experience when she suffered a stillborn birth in August 2018. 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. Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. 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. 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. 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 name of the state is derived form the Spanish . PUBLISHED 8:21 PM CT Apr. The. Former workers told Reuters that Hess and Koch conducted unauthorized dismemberments of bodies, and a few weeks after a 2018 story was published, the FBI raided the business. Before he died in 2016, the 78-year-old retired contractor saved $200 on cremation by agreeing to pledge parts of his body to Donor Services. Hess continues running a dual operation. (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. 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. They desecrated his little body, she said. Its tentacles go throughout not only the country but the world.. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. 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. The Green Funeral. 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. "Hess and Koch used their funeral home at times to essentially steal bodies and body parts using fraudulent and forged donor forms," prosecutor Tim Neff said in a court filing. 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. Like many, Hanson found out about her son Frederick during a phone call from an FBI agent. Leave a sympathy message to the family on the memorial page of Charles Lynch to pay them a last tribute. One ex-employee, Kari Escher, said she was especially troubled by the practices of Hesss mother, Shirley Koch, who works at the facility. Denver attorneys Mike Berg and Dave Teselle now represent more than 50 families who claim Hess and her parents victimized them. 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. The New York Times, a far-left outlet, admitted in a report that Trump's rollback of a rule from President Barack 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. Body snatcher, vile, pure evil, sociopath, are the words they used when asked to describe Hess. and Cavanagh, Reh had an immensely difficult time reaching the Kents, the phone ringing unanswered for weeks.
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