Jacque Hampson spent a year working as Hesss personal assistant. Torsos are a popular specimen these days, she wrote. 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. 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. Authorities also uncovered multiple refrigerated bodies which were wrapped in sheets or blankets but did not have any tags or paperwork identifying them. The name of the state is derived form the Spanish . According to Jeffersonville Police Major Isaac Parker, the department began its investigation of the Lankford Funeral Home and Family Center in Jeffersonville on Friday. The lawsuit claims the three sold torsos for $1,000, a pelvis with upper legs for $1,200. 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. 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. The news agency had also sent written questions to Hess and her attorney about Kochs alleged handling of gold teeth. 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. She said, No, no, well take care of that first thing in the morning, recalled Eberspacher. It can't be fixed, said Hancock. No such degree exists in the United States for morticians, veteran funeral directors say. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. 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. Megan Hess, the owner of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, and her parents are now under investigation by the FBI. 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. Fells called running such a multifaceted operation a new frontier., Through the attorney, Hess declined to comment for this story and didnt address questions about the FBI probe, her business practices, and the allegations by former employees. These illegitimate businesses are buying and selling body parts just like anything off the shelf at Walmart, added Teselle. But the business arrangement is highly unusual. She showed me her collection of gold teeth one day, said Escher, who helped manage a former cremation-marketing business owned by Hess. Golden Gate's owner denies all allegations. All they got was the urn and a death certificate no other paperwork. When Schum hesitated, Hess said she would waive the cremation fee if Schum agreed to donate her friend's bladder to science. On March 17, the unsealed indictment revealed that this donor services business would harvest the human remains and then sell them, illegally and without the families' knowledge. 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. Koch's central role was chopping up the bodies, court records show. 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. 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. But it provided an important public service, she said. 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. Feb 4, 2023, 5:26 PM SGT. 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. 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. He covers everything from stolen art and towing to mobile homes and quirky stories that defy category. 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. There are currently 350 funeral home listings for the state of Colorado and we provide all the cemetery information for the state as well. U.S. District Judge Christine M. Arguello on Tuesday sentenced Hess, 46, to 20 years in prison the maximum allowable for her role in a nearly decade-long scheme to sell body parts without the. The article also tells about how Sunset Mesa Funeral Home handled some services free of charge. Telling stories that matter in a dynamic, evolving state. 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. Megan Hess, a former Colorado funeral home director, chopped up over 500 . 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. 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. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. 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. 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. 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. 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 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. Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. The operators of a Colorado funeral home suspected of running a side business selling body parts without consent have been indicted on fraud and illegally transporting diseased cadavers. The gruesome details of the case which authorities say included more than 500 victims drew international attention and shined a light on the . Each edition is filled with exclusive news, analysis and other behind-the-scenes information you wont find anywhere else. In reality, Burg added, they are just trying to get those bodies free and then they are going to chop them up themselves in parts and make money off the bodies.. She showed Denver7 the container that she was given. They are struggling with claims she created a product with a power saw and angry that she ultimately profited from the sale of arms, heads legs, torsos even whole bodies. They both plan to file complaints with the Department of Regulatory Affairs. In the late aughts, the town of Montrose, Colorado, made national headlines. Its sickening, said Hanson. According to Reuters Sunset Mesa Funeral Home had seen their call volume increase from 59 in 2015 to 128 in 2017. Andrew Scheid has been the director at . The charges defray the cost of picking up the deceased, she said in the 2016 interview. I see his body parts floating in space and I keep trying to grab them and put him back and I can't! 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. She took orders for body parts via Hotmail, email records show. 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. Now its possible its not my baby in the urn, Reh said. 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. 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. Shannon and Staci Kent, 45, of Leadville were charged on Friday with attempted tampering with a deceased human body. The Lake County Sheriffs Office confirmed an active criminal investigation is underway. Non-compete agreements, Customer Experience, Community Engagement. 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. Specifics of the scope of theFBI investigation are unclear. You are looking at how to make money.. High Country News reports that, duringthe initial investigation, the FBI tested 128 samples of remains tied to Sunset Mesa. 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 Legal Statement. 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. Earlier this month, authorities from both Lake and Eagle counties encountered a strong odor of decomposition when they searched the Leadville funeral home, reads. Connie Hansons sons body parts were also allegedly sold. In 2018, Schum got a call from FBI Special Agent John Busch, who told her that Sunset Mesa had sold not just her friend's body, but many others. 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. Other charges against Hess will . 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. 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 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. When asked if it contained her husbands cremains, she said, I dont know.. None of the former employees or associates Reuters interviewed worked directly for the body broker business. This is a way we can eliminate or alleviate the black market on body parts, Crowder added. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. . Prosecutors said she lied to more than 200 families, who received cremated ashes from bins mixed with the remains of different cadavers. 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. 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 . A woman in Colorado has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for illegally selling body parts. The lawsuit estimates the three were making $40,000 a month from the sale of body parts. Donating bodies, selling the parts: Frequently asked questions. Holloman now deals with the guilt of knowing details of what happened to her moms body. 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. Why Donor Services was unable to trace Dunlaps head remains unclear. felt they were too heavy to be those of a stillborn child, and submitted them for analysis. The Bailey-Kent Funeral Home was the only option given to her for cremation under a certain weight, she said. In cases like Schum's, where a family did agree to donate a body part, Hess sold more than she had permission to. These people deserve to know why what was done to them was done to them. That individual, referred to in the order only as E.W., received no notice that the cremation would be done at the Gypsum funeral home, one of six locations Kent operates in Colorados high country. The funeral home's owners, Megan Hess, 43, and her mother . Market data provided by Factset. 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. They desecrated his little body, she said. It is illegal to buy or sell organs such as hearts, kidneys and tendons for transplant. 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. 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. He had been dismembered. A Medical Examiner can often discover hidden evidence of injury to explain a sudden death, or can document natural diseases to show that no foul play was involved in the death. 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. 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). 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. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. 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. Ive had nightmares about it, said Fredericka Freddie Hancock. Enter your email address to join 3,177 readers who subscribe to all Funeral Director articles. This whole situation, oh, I thought it was part of my past.. The Daily Sentinel reports that Megan Hess faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison after entering the plea Tuesday in Grand Junction. . 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 . 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. 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. 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. A few days later, she was able to pick up the cremains, but like E.W., Cavanagh received no paperwork. What You Need To Know. Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. Her 69-year-old mother, Shirley Koch, also pleaded guilty to fraud and was sentenced to 15 years. The industry leader for online information for tax, accounting and finance professionals. Propel Funeral Partners makes acquisitions. The judge ordered that Hess and Koch be sent to prison immediately. DENVER -- To many it is simply the unthinkable. Shannon and Staci Kent did not respond to interview requests from The Denver Post. 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. Donor Services has circulated a brochure that reads: Be a hero. Hansons box included wires and what appear to be old batteries. There is even more money to be made in dissecting those bodies and selling the parts. Thats when E.W. Chantal Reh, an Avon resident, went through a similar experience when she suffered a stillborn birth in August 2018. 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. At the focal point of the FBI probe: funeral director Megan Hess, who did not return Fox News request for a comment. Before referring questions to a lawyer, Hess spoke extensively with Reuters about her body broker company. Hess runs Sunset Mesa, a funeral home, and Donor Services, a body broker operation from the same building in Montrose. [wpforms id=436 title=true description=true]. 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. Dunlap left one specific instruction: The glass eye that hed worn since a childhood accident should be removed and sent to his best friend. Now the women wonder how many others might have had the same experience. The remains Hess returned to families were also not those of their loved ones. 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. As funeral directors, while we dont do everything perfect, we should have the best interest of our client families at heart. 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. Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to fraud in July. Screen for heightened risk individual and entities globally to help uncover hidden risks in business relationships and human networks. 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. 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. did not receive a contract for funeral services, and only received the cremains after several calls to Kent, the order states. Peck was given another six months of probation. The NBC10 Investigators found bodies inside an unlicensed funeral home in Chester, Pennsylvania. The emotional, daylong hearing brought to a close a five-year legal odyssey that began when the FBI raided the funeral home in February 2018, following a Reuters investigation that found Sunset Mesa to be unlike any other business in the country. found out the cremains contained ashes from an infant, but also long bone fragments of an older/larger adult individual and metal, according to the suspension order. First published on Wed 6 Jul 2022 10.36 EDT. Seeing how this chapter is opening up again is incredible, its unbelievable. When Reuters visited her facility in 2016, Hess said Donor Services represented just 15 percent or so of her total business. (REUTERS). E.W. 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.. You could hear the machine going, she told Kovaleski. On Oct. 13, the state shut down both the Gypsum operation and . One of Hesss donors was Rex Dunlap, a frugal Coloradan battling brain cancer. Two months later, after hearing nothing from Hess, Schum went to Sunset Mesa to retrieve her friend's ashes. The recent parade of early deaths has hit close to home. She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. Finally Reh and her boyfriend went to the funeral home with the expectation that they would see their baby. 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. It was kinda creepy., It is totally unregulated, said Burg. did not receive a contract for funeral services, and only received the cremains after several calls to Kent, the order states. More Reuters investigations and long-form narratives, Got a confidential news tip? and Cavanagh, Reh had an immensely difficult time reaching the Kents, the phone ringing unanswered for weeks. Kent also operates funeral homes in Silverthorne, Idaho Springs, Fairplay and Buena Vista. Reuters Investigates offers several ways to securely contact our reporters. At Donor Services, her body parts business, Hess can generate a greater return on the dead, a different price list reviewed by Reuters showed. More by The Associated Press, Got a story tip? There are no ethics there when you do that.. They are distinct from the organ and tissue transplant industry, which the U.S. government closely regulates. 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. Her 69-year-old mother, Shirley Koch, also pleaded guilty to fraud and was sentenced 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. But days went by and she couldnt reach anyone. A price quote Hess sent to an Arizona medical training lab in 2016 offered torsos for $1,000 each. (If they've been left standing. Neither addressed the issue about the teeth. Both have become experts on the secret industry of selling body parts on a world wide market. The startling discovery led to a further investigation of oversight in the funeral industry. We did not provide our messaging to be repurposed in this brochure, and are following up, said spokeswoman Erin Dolin. 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. But days went by and she couldnt reach anyone. 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..