She showed me her collection of gold teeth one day, said Escher, who helped manage a former cremation-marketing business owned by Hess. A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. Screen for heightened risk individual and entities globally to help uncover hidden risks in business relationships and human networks. ThinkStock via Getty Images. Peck was given another six months of probation. I went through a very bad crisis losing the baby, Cavanagh said. Hancocks story started after her husband, Thomas, passed away. Just about any adult can run for coroner in Colorado. There are no ethics there when you do that.. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. (William Woody, Special to the Colorado Sun), Lawmakers targeting hospital facility fees, (720) 263-2338 Call, text, Signal or WhatsApp, Proudly powered by Newspack by Automattic. Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors of Montrose handled the funeral . This compassionate help is the essence of what we do. The suspension order details a 2019 instance in which an unnamed individual arranged with Kents funeral home for the cremation of their stillborn child. 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 And much like E.W. 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. They are distinct from the organ and tissue transplant industry, which the U.S. government closely regulates. The funeral home's owners, Megan Hess, 43, and her mother . The FBI started looking into Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services a few months after it was discovered that both businesses were being operated out of the same building and by the same owner, according to thereport. 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. . Staci Kent, however, wouldnt let them see the baby, Reh said. But two said Hess sometimes bragged about how lucrative it was to sell bodies and body parts. did not receive a contract for funeral services, and only received the cremains after several calls to Kent, the order states. Kent also operates funeral homes in Silverthorne, Idaho Springs, Fairplay and Buena Vista. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! Reuters identified 34 body brokers that have been active across the United States during the past five years. 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 . 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. DENVER -- To many it is simply the unthinkable. Authorities are now investigating. "Hess and Koch's conduct caused immense emotional pain for the families and next of kin.". Extra charges are assessed if a body is embalmed or a funeral director is involved. Earlier this month, authorities from both Lake and Eagle counties encountered a strong odor of decomposition when they searched the Leadville funeral home, reads. Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to fraud in July. 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. MILLERSVILLE, Pa. (WHTM) A Lancaster County funeral home and its director are facing formal disciplinary action and are under investigation by the state. (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. 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. 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 . (REUTERS). Copyright 2019 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. I know these are not his ashes because his body parts went all over the country, Hanson said. Funeral homes are required to register with the state, but spokesman Rasizer said the regulatory affairs department is not authorized to inspect mortuaries. "This is the most emotionally draining case I have ever experienced on the bench," U.S. District Judge Christine M. Arguello said during Tuesday's sentencing hearing in Grand Junction, Colorado. Colorado regulators shut Sunset Mesa down in February 2018, KMGH-TV reported. Records from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies showthis was not the first time Kent has been in the crosshairs of state regulators. There are no ethics there when you do that. Officials also found the "post-cremation remains" of 16 people, according . 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. Now the women wonder how many others might have had the same experience. 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. After contacting Hess in December about the content of the brochure, Dolin said Hess told the organ transplant group that the brochure in question was old and has not been used for some time.. Now its possible its not my baby in the urn, Reh said. Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. Shannon and Staci Kent did not respond to interview requests from The Denver Post. 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. Hess, however, charged families to donate their bodies $195, plus $300 more if relatives want cremated remains returned. Some former staff members of Sunset Mesa said they never heard Hess disclose to donors that the bodies would be sold for profit. One ex-employee, Kari Escher, said she was especially troubled by the practices of Hesss mother, Shirley Koch, who works at the facility. felt they were too heavy to be those of a stillborn child, and submitted them for analysis. Market data provided by Factset. Its tentacles go throughout not only the country but the world.. Her father, Alan Koch, ran the crematory, Hess said. With heavy hearts, we announce the death of Arnold Roger Tesnow (Colorado Springs, Colorado), born in Worth, Illinois, who passed away on February 25, 2023 at the age of 78. "We don't even have a name for a crime this heinous. According to Jeffersonville Police Major Isaac Parker, the department began its investigation of the Lankford Funeral Home and Family Center in Jeffersonville on Friday. Colorado Ordway Funeral Homes Eaton Family Funeral Home Eaton Family Funeral Home in Ordway 202 E 3rd St Ordway, CO 81063 (719) 267-4221 Click to show location on map Zoom About Eaton Family Funeral Home We understand that losing a loved one can be a very stressful time. The fact that now the business is also making money from the sale of body parts if that is not being told to the family, it is unethical and probably illegal, if only as deception, said Robert Fells, general counsel of the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association, an industry trade group. 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. More Reuters investigations and long-form narratives, Got a confidential news tip? Colorado is nicknamed the "Centennial State" because when it became the 38th state, the United States turned 100 on August 1, 1876. 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. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. Another alleged victim said her mothers body was desecrated. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. The home, located at 8215 W. Summerdale Ave., was sold for just shy of $400,000 in May 2021. Its sickening, said Hanson. Megan Hess, a former Colorado funeral home director, chopped up over 500 . Megan Hess, the former operator of a Montrose funeral home convicted of selling body parts without family consent, was . 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. Colorado does not regulate body brokers. She has been told parts of her husbands body were sold on the world-wide market. Chantal Reh, an Avon resident, went through a similar experience when she suffered a stillborn birth in August 2018. Mabry said Koch told him the glass eye couldnt be removed after Dunlaps head was severed, embalmed and shipped to researchers. or redistributed. (If they've been left standing. Its not something that can be fixed., Hancock was notified by the FBI that her husbands body parts had been sold without her consent. 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 20-year term was the maximum allowed under law. Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the worlds largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. But no federal law governs the sale of cadavers or body parts for use in research or education. 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. . 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. In Colorado and most other states, it's legal for funeral homes to sell items taken from corpses, including the gold found in teeth. All rights reserved. Last August, police received a complaint that funds provided to. The name of the state is derived form the Spanish . She said she and her mother, Koch, handled about 10 cadavers a month in the back room. Hoping to get answers, Denver7 visited Hess home in Montrose. [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. Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Kent kept giving excuses, Cavanagh said. Access unmatched financial data, news and content in a highly-customised workflow experience on desktop, web and mobile. "Our sweet mother, they dismembered her," Erin Smith said, selling her shoulders, knees and feet for profit. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. 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. Such a partnership may raise ethical concerns because it creates a financial incentive for the funeral home. The next year,. At her funeral home, Hess charged families up to $1,000 for cremations that never occurred, prosecutors said, and she offered others free cremations in exchange for a body donation. This all began when a severely decomposed body was reported by a state health inspector. 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. The conflict of interest of having a side business in body parts just leads to problems. Leave a sympathy message to the family on the memorial page of Charles Lynch to pay them a last tribute. My mother and my mothers body has been desecrated.. All they got was the urn and a death certificate no other paperwork. 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. 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. She was sold, embalmed and shipped out within just a few hours of her death, said Holloman. Colorado Funeral Homes. Pam Boyd/pboyd@vaildaily.com. Copyright 2019 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. There are no ethics there when you do that. Shannon and Staci Kent, 45, of Leadville were charged on Friday with attempted tampering with a deceased human body. When Reuters visited her facility in 2016, Hess said Donor Services represented just 15 percent or so of her total business. Market data provided by Factset. Hess is tentatively set to be sentenced in January. 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. 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. All they got was the urn and a death certificate no other paperwork. The article also tells about how Sunset Mesa Funeral Home handled some services free of charge. 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. Colorado regulators shut down the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in 2018. Part 8: Former workers describe troubling practices at this mortuary-body broker, including allegations of deceptive marketing and an account of how gold dental work was removed from corpses and sold. 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. Bailey-Kent Funeral Home, pictured at left, is one of two funeral homes owned by Shannon Kent now under criminal investigation. When Schum hesitated, Hess said she would waive the cremation fee if Schum agreed to donate her friend's bladder to science. After receiving the cremains, E.W. Its a profit business. It is the only state in the country that does not license funeral home and. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. You could hear the machine going, she told Kovaleski. "No, I did not," Hancock responded. Ive had nightmares about it, said Fredericka Freddie Hancock. The owner of the funeral homes, Shannon Kent, is also Lake Countys coroner. felt they were too heavy to be those of a stillborn child, and submitted them for analysis. 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. 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. 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. 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. DENVER, Colorado - 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 . According to Reuters Sunset Mesa Funeral Home had seen their call volume increase from 59 in 2015 to 128 in 2017. 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. In 2020, authorities charged the two with mail fraud and illegal transportation of hazardous materials. Thank you for thinking of me.. As a result, Peck and his funeral home were required to pay a $2,500 fine and $5,000 in investigative costs and attorney fees. The federal inquiry began several months ago, shortly after Reuters interviewed a half-dozen workers who formerly worked for Hess. PUBLISHED 8:21 PM CT Apr. Reuters Investigates offers several ways to securely contact our reporters. The Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services building in Montrose, Colorado, U.S., December 16, 2017. There, authorities also found dried bodily fluid on surgical equipment, the metal preparation table, and the floor. And much like E.W. Holloman now deals with the guilt of knowing details of what happened to her moms body. Hess, 45, and her mother, Shirley Koch, operated the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose. No one returned her voicemails. Enter your email address to join 3,177 readers who subscribe to all Funeral Director articles. Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. In Colorado, the states organ donation program, Donor Alliance, said Hesss marketing language could be confusing to people.. Andrew Scheid has been the director at . 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. Email: newsroom@coloradosun.com As she mourned the loss of her son, Cavanagh was referred to the Kent Funeral Home in Gypsum to do the cremation. But days went by and she couldnt reach anyone. Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to fraud in July 2022 after a 2018 investigation that exposed her for selling parts of dead bodies that were brought to the funeral home for cremation. 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. 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. 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. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. We were greeted at the door by her father, who told us to leave the property. Like many, Hanson found out about her son Frederick during a phone call from an FBI agent. Im not interested. and Cavanagh, Reh had an immensely difficult time reaching the Kents, the phone ringing unanswered for weeks. 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. There is even more money to be made in dissecting those bodies and selling the parts. 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. The details of the plea agreement are unknown, but a trial for Hess' mother is still on track to proceed. She did. 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.. 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 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. Hess runs Sunset Mesa, a funeral home, and Donor Services, a body broker operation from the same building in Montrose. It can't be fixed, said Hancock. Jacque Hampson spent a year working as Hesss personal assistant. According to the Johnstown, N.Y. Police Department, Brian M. Barnett, 35, who owns the since-shuttered Ehle . This comes after a dozen . 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. Body brokers like Donor Services are also known as non-transplant tissue banks. 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. This whole situation, oh, I thought it was part of my past.. Donating bodies, selling the parts: Frequently asked questions. Two months later, after hearing nothing from Hess, Schum went to Sunset Mesa to retrieve her friend's ashes. Instead of paying the standard $695 cremation fee to Colorado Cremation, Hesss former cremation marketing business, Dunlap paid Hess $495 to take his body. High Country News reports that, duringthe initial investigation, the FBI tested 128 samples of remains tied to Sunset Mesa. Instead of paying the standard $695 cremation fee to . 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. 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. Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. 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. One of Hesss donors was Rex Dunlap, a frugal Coloradan battling brain cancer. Think about it, the FBI came in and raided them, and they raided them because they knew this body broker this was getting bigger and bigger and bigger, said Berg. Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way. 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. Torsos are a popular specimen these days, she wrote. The startling discovery led to a further investigation of oversight in the funeral industry. 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. Thats when E.W. These illegitimate businesses are buying and selling body parts just like anything off the shelf at Walmart, added Teselle. I didnt believe in depression until I lost my baby, Cavanagh said. . They both plan to file complaints with the Department of Regulatory Affairs. 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 investigation of Kents funeral homes began in February after the sheriffs office received a complaint by a client regarding the handling of human remains. The Bailey-Kent Funeral Home was the only option given to her for cremation under a certain weight, she said. 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. . NBC10 . 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. 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. The NBC10 Investigators found bodies inside an unlicensed funeral home in Chester, Pennsylvania. A Colorado funeral home is under federal investigation over accusations it doubled as a body broker firm, buying and selling human body parts, a Reuters special report revealed Tuesday. Body brokers sometimes market their services using language that could mislead prospective donors into believing the broker handles organ donations.
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