When Schum hesitated, Hess said she would waive the cremation fee if Schum agreed to donate her friend's bladder to science. 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. 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. According to Reuters Sunset Mesa Funeral Home had seen their call volume increase from 59 in 2015 to 128 in 2017. 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. 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. Bailey-Kent Funeral Home, pictured at left, is one of two funeral homes owned by Shannon Kent now under criminal investigation. 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 Authorities are now investigating. A change of plea hearing for Koch is scheduled for July 12. Peck was given another six months of probation. Hess, however, charged families to donate their bodies $195, plus $300 more if relatives want cremated remains returned. A human head and spine sold for $850, while a full pelvis all the way to the toes priced out at $2,850. At the focal point of the FBI probe: funeral director Megan Hess, who did not return Fox News request for a comment. The conflict of interest of having a side business in body parts just leads to problems. As funeral directors, while we dont do everything perfect, we should have the best interest of our client families at heart. 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 the women wonder how many others might have had the same experience. 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. It is illegal in the United States to sell organs such as hearts, kidneys and tendons for transplant; they must be donated. I didnt believe in depression until I lost my baby, Cavanagh said. Hancocks story started after her husband, Thomas, passed away. Funeral Director Daily take: I have a hard time fathoming what may have went on at this funeral home. However, on Thursday, Colorado police arrested Shannon and Staci Kent after finding a decaying corpse in a funeral home they previously operated. 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. You are not looking at the full disposition (of a body). 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. . 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. The Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services building in Montrose, Colorado, U.S., December 16, 2017. The Bailey-Kent Funeral Home was the only option given to her for cremation under a certain weight, she 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. 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. 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. These illegitimate businesses are buying and selling body parts just like anything off the shelf at Walmart, added Teselle. Funeral homes are required to register with the state, but spokesman Rasizer said the regulatory affairs department is not authorized to inspect mortuaries. 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. I told them it didnt make sense, Mabry said. Specifics of the scope of theFBI investigation are unclear. According to Jeffersonville Police Major Isaac Parker, the department began its investigation of the Lankford Funeral Home and Family Center in Jeffersonville on Friday. Ive been violated, said Alena Holloman. Thats when E.W. 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. The New York Times, a far-left outlet, admitted in a report that Trump's rollback of a rule from President Barack ", Tina Shanon, whose mother was dismembered against her will, told the court, "I've worn many masks to cover the pain. 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. Its not something that can be fixed., Hancock was notified by the FBI that her husbands body parts had been sold without her consent. A former employee has alleged misconduct regarding the disposal of the deceased at Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas. Updated: 8:07 PM MDT September 14, 2021. Escher said Koch, who embalmed and dismembered bodies, pulled teeth from some of the corpses to extract the gold in crowns or fillings. 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. Such a partnership may raise ethical concerns because it creates a financial incentive for the funeral home. Pettyjohn now lives with the memory of what happened to the body of her 26-year-old son, Brian. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. Pam Boyd/pboyd@vaildaily.com. After reading the states suspension order this week, two women told The Denver Post that the circumstances surrounding E.W. sound eerily familiar. 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. The body was identified as that of 42 . One ex-employee, Kari Escher, said she was especially troubled by the practices of Hesss mother, Shirley Koch, who works at the facility. are acquisitions larger in general? (REUTERS). 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. 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. I'll never be OK.". She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. Body brokers sometimes market their services using language that could mislead prospective donors into believing the broker handles organ donations. 06, 2021. Colorado regulators have shut down the funeral home. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Both have become experts on the secret industry of selling body parts on a world wide market. She said, No, no, well take care of that first thing in the morning, recalled Eberspacher. 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. The owner of the funeral homes, Shannon Kent, is also Lake Countys coroner. Hess continues running a dual operation. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. 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. Feb 4, 2023, 5:26 PM SGT. "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. 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. Copyright 2019 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. SCI 4Q Revenue and Year End Revenue lower than comparables, Funeral Director Daily, The business of Funeral Care. The other nine were structured as nonprofits, including Donor Services the only broker Reuters could find that still doubles as a funeral home. Records from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies showthis was not the first time Kent has been in the crosshairs of state regulators. Burg and Teselles law firm is currently suing body brokers in both Colorado and Arizona. 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 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.. More by The Associated Press, Got a story tip? 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. 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. (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. Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to fraud in July. Further, the van was holding two other bodies that needed to be removed.. Drop us a note at tips@coloradosun.com. It is unbelievable, said Dave Teselle, a Denver-based attorney who represents Hancock and more than five dozen other families in a claim against the owners of Sunset Mesa and the companies who are accused of buying the body parts. 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 Chantal Reh, an Avon resident, went through a similar experience when she suffered a stillborn birth in August 2018. Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors of Montrose handled the funeral . They cut him up in pieces and sent them all over the place.. 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. E.W. Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the worlds largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. Telling stories that matter in a dynamic, evolving state. According to High Country News, Hess was running the funeral home in conjunction with a non-profit called Donor Services Inc., through which she sold "donated" body parts to companies a practice referred to as body brokering. . 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. A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. 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 Lake County Sheriffs Office confirmed an active criminal investigation is underway. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. 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. 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 . Further, the van was holding two other bodies that needed to be removed.. Other charges against Hess will be dropped under a plea agreement, the Sentinel said. My mother and my mothers body has been desecrated.. They both plan to file complaints with the Department of Regulatory Affairs. MILLERSVILLE, Pa. (WHTM) A Lancaster County funeral home and its director are facing formal disciplinary action and are under investigation by the state. 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. Catch up on the days top five stories every weekday afternoon. 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. Hoping to get answers, Denver7 visited Hess home in Montrose. Reuters Investigates offers several ways to securely contact our reporters. The couple got dressed up in matching outfits and brought a special camera. and Cavanagh, Reh had an immensely difficult time reaching the Kents, the phone ringing unanswered for weeks. Email: newsroom@coloradosun.com Megan Hess, the owner of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, and her parents are now under investigation by the FBI. Megan Hess, the former operator of a Montrose funeral home convicted of selling body parts without family consent, was . Connie Hansons sons body parts were also allegedly sold. 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. a contrarian view? Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way. As a matter of fact, the FBI has set up a hot line and e-mail address for potential victims of the businesses to contact with information. At Donor Services, her body parts business, Hess can generate a greater return on the dead, a different price list reviewed by Reuters showed. Her 69-year-old mother, Shirley Koch, also pleaded guilty to fraud and was sentenced to 15 years. 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. 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 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 transfers were done through Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation and Donor Services, authorities said. Thousands more patients could benefit from life saving and healing eye and tissue donations.. "No, I did not," Hancock responded. The gruesome details of the case which authorities say included more than 500 victims drew international attention and shined a light on the . Her funeral home site listed her credentials, including a PhD in mortuary science. Take a look at some of Colorado's most notorious crimes. 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. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. The Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services building in Montrose, Colorado, U.S., December 16, 2017. Hess is tentatively set to be sentenced in January. He has served as Lake County coroner since 2012 and was reelected to a four-year term in November 2018. Leave a sympathy message to the family on the memorial page of Charles Lynch to pay them a last tribute. Like many, Hanson found out about her son Frederick during a phone call from an FBI agent. 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. With a population of about 20,000, Montrose is a community surrounded by the beauty of the Rocky Mountains. We were greeted at the door by her father, who told us to leave the property. . 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. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, Its a profit business. 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. 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 news agency had also sent written questions to Hess and her attorney about Kochs alleged handling of gold teeth. "It's concerning to the court that defendant Hess refuses to assume any responsibility for her conduct.". 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. MONTROSE, Colo. A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. 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. The couple got dressed up in matching outfits and brought a special camera. 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. Koch's central role was chopping up the bodies, court records show. A few days later, she was able to pick up the cremains, but like E.W., Cavanagh received no paperwork. Thats when E.W. His two shoulders went somewhere else. 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. Shannon and Staci Kent, 45, of Leadville were charged on Friday with attempted tampering with a deceased human body. 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. 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. You could hear the machine going, she told Kovaleski. The suspension order details a 2019 instance in which an unnamed individual arranged with Kents funeral home for the cremation of their stillborn child. A body bag was found to be leaking bodily fluids along with a container of animal remains which was also leaking fluids.