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. The Lake County Sheriffs Office confirmed an active criminal investigation is underway. Neither addressed the issue about the teeth. 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. 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. by Mr. Leadville | Oct 26, 2020 | Leadville News. 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). She told Contact7 Investigates that she heard bodies being dismembered. A woman in Colorado has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for illegally selling body parts. Now its possible its not my baby in the urn, Reh said. Twenty-five of the brokers were for-profit corporations. All rights reserved. When asked if it contained her husbands cremains, she said, I dont know.. After receiving the cremains, E.W. She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. Megan Hess faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison after entering the plea Tuesday in Grand Junction, Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), Members of the FBI, along with Montrose law enforcement investigate the Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services building Tuesday morning, February 6, 2018. The body was identified by fingerprints as Victor Akubuo, 42, from Southern . Prosecutors said she lied to more than 200 families, who received cremated ashes from bins mixed with the remains of different cadavers. Another alleged victim said her mothers body was desecrated. It can't be fixed, said Hancock. Its tentacles go throughout not only the country but the world.. Instead of paying the standard $695 cremation fee to . No one returned her voicemails. 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. E.W. Most brokers who sell body parts offer to cremate part of the donors body for free. After reading the states suspension order this week, two women told The Denver Post that the circumstances surrounding E.W. sound eerily familiar. Officials also found the "post-cremation remains" of 16 people, according . You could hear the machine going, she told Kovaleski. A funeral home in Crapaud, Prince Edward Island is under RCMP investigation for allegations of financial irregularities. And much like E.W. In February of 2018, Colorado regulators shut down the funeral home at the same time the FBI was investigating claims families did not receive the real cremains of their loved ones. Peck was given another six months of probation. . Reached by phone at Sunset Mesa, Koch said she did not wish to talk with a Reuters reporter. (Google). 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. 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. 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.. "This is the most emotionally draining. Its not something that can be fixed., Hancock was notified by the FBI that her husbands body parts had been sold without her consent. She says Shirley Koch came to pick up his body. I go to sleep with the visions of him being dismembered with a power saw, said Ruthie Pettyjohn, whose sons body parts were allegedly sold. "It's concerning to the court that defendant Hess refuses to assume any responsibility for her conduct.". A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. Kent also operates funeral homes in Silverthorne, Idaho Springs, Fairplay and Buena Vista. It was kind of creepy.. The couple got dressed up in matching outfits and brought a special camera. A spokeswoman for Donate LifeAmerica said in an email that Hesss firm is not a federally designated organ procurement organization and has no permission to use the Donate Life brand. Mabry said Koch told him the glass eye couldnt be removed after Dunlaps head was severed, embalmed and shipped to researchers. 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. They were arrested in 2020 and charged with six counts of mail fraud and three counts of illegal transportation of hazardous materials. I went through a very bad crisis losing the baby, Cavanagh said. 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. By: Tony Kovaleski Posted at 6:00 PM, Oct 31, 2019 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. She has been told parts of her husbands body were sold on the world-wide market. It was kinda creepy., It is totally unregulated, said Burg. Earlier this month, authorities from both Lake and Eagle counties encountered a strong odor of decomposition when they searched the Leadville funeral home, reads. The Unaffiliated is our twice-weekly newsletter on Colorado politics and policy. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. 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. The state's Department of Regulatory Agencies. The news agency had also sent written questions to Hess and her attorney about Kochs alleged handling of gold teeth. 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. Some former staff members of Sunset Mesa said they never heard Hess disclose to donors that the bodies would be sold for profit. Megan Hess, the owner of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, and her parents are now under investigation by the FBI. There are no ethics there when you do that.. After receiving the cremains, E.W. He covers everything from stolen art and towing to mobile homes and quirky stories that defy category. This all began when a severely decomposed body was reported by a state health inspector. In 2020, authorities charged the two with mail fraud and illegal transportation of hazardous materials. With a population of about 20,000, Montrose is a community surrounded by the beauty of the Rocky Mountains. Prosecutors recommended a sentence for Hess of 12 to 15 years. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! 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. Learn more about Colorado true crime stories in the gallery below. They cut him up in pieces and sent them all over the place.. The attorney, Carol Viner, asked Reuters to refrain from contacting Hess employees for any reason.. Few state laws provide any oversight. 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. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. High Country News reports that, duringthe initial investigation, the FBI tested 128 samples of remains tied to Sunset Mesa. One of Hesss donors was Rex Dunlap, a frugal Coloradan battling brain cancer. 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. But it provided an important public service, she said. But days went by and she couldnt reach anyone. It is illegal to buy or sell organs such as hearts, kidneys and tendons for transplant. You are not looking at the full disposition (of a body). Heads went for $500 and $250 for a knee prices at significantly discounted rates compared to other body brokers. It is a business and it is a profit business, added Burg. Finally Reh and her boyfriend went to the funeral home with the expectation that they would see their baby. Chantal Reh, an Avon resident, went through a similar experience when she suffered a stillborn birth in August 2018. 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.. Email address: Colorado Funeral Home / Body Broker Continues Under Investigation, Acquisitions, buy-outs, creative ideas. 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. Thousands more patients could benefit from life saving and healing eye and tissue donations.. We were greeted at the door by her father, who told us to leave the property. Last August, police received a complaint that funds provided to. 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. Its a profit business. Kent operates six funeral homes in the states high country, which also include Buena Vista, Fairplay, Idaho Springs, and Silverthorne. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Now the women wonder how many others might have had the same experience. Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the worlds largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. 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. Colorado is nicknamed the "Centennial State" because when it became the 38th state, the United States turned 100 on August 1, 1876. Burg and Teselles law firm is currently suing body brokers in both Colorado and Arizona. 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. Email: newsroom@coloradosun.com or redistributed. 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. The conflict of interest of having a side business in body parts just leads to problems. The judge ordered that Hess and Koch be sent to prison immediately. 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. PUBLISHED 8:21 PM CT Apr. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. But experts say its the underground black market that also contributes to the increased demand for body parts. Prior to the raid, the cost of purchasing an arm and shoulder was $600. His two shoulders went somewhere else. . The legislation has support from the state's largest trade association for funeral homes, the Colorado Funeral Directors Association. Seeing how this chapter is opening up again is incredible, its unbelievable. 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 Daily Sentinel reportsthat Megan Hess faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison after entering the plea Tuesday in Grand Junction. Staci Kent, however, wouldnt let them see the baby, Reh said. 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. . It only investigates a funeral home if a complaint is filed, he said. But the business arrangement is highly unusual. Such a partnership may raise ethical concerns because it creates a financial incentive for the funeral home. 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. 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. 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. My mother and my mothers body has been desecrated.. Just about any adult can run for coroner in Colorado. 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. . She said she and her mother, Koch, handled about 10 cadavers a month in the back room. We did not provide our messaging to be repurposed in this brochure, and are following up, said spokeswoman Erin Dolin. She mentioned on several occasions about how much money she would be getting per month, which blew my mind, said Jennifer Henderson, a former floral designer for Sunset Mesa. Feb 4, 2023, 5:26 PM SGT. Fo 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. Two Colorado funeral homes are under criminal investigation after authorities found a unrefrigerated body and learned that at least one family had received a stillborn's cremains mixed. As she mourned the loss of her son, Cavanagh was referred to the Kent Funeral Home in Gypsum to do the cremation. and Cavanagh, Reh had an immensely difficult time reaching the Kents, the phone ringing unanswered for weeks. 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 However, on Thursday, Colorado police arrested Shannon and Staci Kent after finding a decaying corpse in a funeral home they previously operated. SCI 4Q Revenue and Year End Revenue lower than comparables, Funeral Director Daily, The business of Funeral Care. The next year,. Hess' mother, Shirley Koch, has also been indicted. At the time of publication, no charges had been filed against the coroner, though Colorado has suspended the business licenses for both funeral homes. did not receive a contract for funeral services, and only received the cremains after several calls to Kent, the order states. 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. 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. Investigators discovered 31 dead bodies, some of which were in advanced stages of decomposition. Unfortunately, the attention wasn't focused on the town's natural beauty or tourism opportunities. I know these are not his ashes because his body parts went all over the country, Hanson said. 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. They both plan to file complaints with the Department of Regulatory Affairs. 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.. Did you ever consent to have this family mutilate your husbands body? asked Denver7. Pam Boyd/pboyd@vaildaily.com. Reuters identified 34 body brokers that have been active across the United States during the past five years. Family and friends can send flowers and condolences in memory of the loved one. 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.