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. There are no ethics there when you do that.. 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. 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 body was identified as that of 42 . 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. 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. A few days later, she was able to pick up the cremains, but like E.W., Cavanagh received no paperwork. Kent has not yet been arrested for the most recent incidents, which at the Leadville funeral home included authorities' discovery of an abandoned stillborn, according to the Oct. 13 summary suspension issued by Colorados Office of Funeral Home and Crematory Registration. The details of the plea agreement are unknown, but a trial for Hess' mother is still on track to proceed. She told Contact7 Investigates that she heard bodies being dismembered. . The other nine were structured as nonprofits, including Donor Services the only broker Reuters could find that still doubles as a funeral home. Separate from the FBI inquiry, Reuters has learned that Colorado state funeral regulators are investigating Hess's funeral home, Sunset Mesa. It is a business and it is a profit business, added Burg. The legislation has support from the state's largest trade association for funeral homes, the Colorado Funeral Directors Association. It is illegal in the United States to sell organs such as hearts, kidneys and tendons for transplant; they must be donated. 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. 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. Suppliers of transplant tissue must obtain federal recognition and operate as charities. In Colorado and most other states, it also is legal for funeral homes to sell items recovered from dead bodies, such as gold dental work. Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors of Montrose handled the funeral . There is also evidence of Donor Services shipping at least 26 boxes containing body parts to various parts of the world in 2016 according to evidence that has been recovered. 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. 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. The remains Hess returned to families were also not those of their loved ones. Like many, Hanson found out about her son Frederick during a phone call from an FBI agent. Paul Hawthorne, Getty Images. Chantal Reh. and Cavanagh, Reh had an immensely difficult time reaching the Kents, the phone ringing unanswered for weeks. I know these are not his ashes because his body parts went all over the country, Hanson said. Colorado regulators shut Sunset Mesa down in February 2018, KMGH-TV reported. Escher said Koch, who embalmed and dismembered bodies, pulled teeth from some of the corpses to extract the gold in crowns or fillings. 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. The friend would then place the glass eye in an urn containing half of Dunlaps ashes and bury the urn atop the grave of Dunlaps father in Telluride, Colorado. by Mr. Leadville | Oct 26, 2020 | Leadville News. That's part of my nightmare. Learn more about Colorado true crime stories in the gallery below. (McGovern said no industry regulated by the Division of Professions and Occupations has regulators assigned exclusively to it.) 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. The suspension order details a 2019 instance in which an unnamed individual arranged with Kents funeral home for the cremation of their stillborn child. 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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. 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. 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. Colorado is nicknamed the "Centennial State" because when it became the 38th state, the United States turned 100 on August 1, 1876. 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. When asked if it contained her husbands cremains, she said, I dont know.. The price list is from an Arizona company shut down after an FBI raid five years ago. The judge ordered that Hess and Koch be sent to prison immediately. Two months later, after hearing nothing from Hess, Schum went to Sunset Mesa to retrieve her friend's ashes. . The suspension order details a 2019 instance in which an unnamed individual arranged with Kents funeral home for the cremation of their stillborn child. Drop us a note at tips@coloradosun.com. Such multipurpose operations raise ethical concerns, several funeral industry veterans said. or redistributed. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. 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. The 20-year term was the maximum allowed under law. Colorado regulators have shut down the funeral home. 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. MONTROSE, Colo. (CBS4) - Federal authorities raided a funeral home in Montrose on Tuesday, at which the owner is under investigation for a side-business donating bodies for education and. . Most brokers who sell body parts offer to cremate part of the donors body for free. 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 article also tells about how Sunset Mesa Funeral Home handled some services free of charge. 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. By submitting your email to receive this newsletter, you agree to our. 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. POCATELLO, Idaho A Pocatello funeral home under investigation by the Idaho Board of Morticians has had its licenses revoked. In Colorado, the states organ donation program, Donor Alliance, said Hesss marketing language could be confusing to people.. 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 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. It only investigates a funeral home if a complaint is filed, he said. And much like E.W. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. 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. 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 . Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to fraud in July. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. After losing his ability to conduct cremation or funeral home services in December, Kent's Silverthorne funeral parlor sat empty until this month when the new tenant, Colorado Funeral Homes . He has served as Lake County coroner since 2012 and was reelected to a four-year term in November 2018. 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. 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 . This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. 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.. Records from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies showthis was not the first time Kent has been in the crosshairs of state regulators. "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. Hess' lawyer said she has been unfairly vilified as a "witch," a "monster" and a "ghoul," when instead she is a "broken human being" whose conduct can be attributed to a traumatic brain injury at age 18. 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. Pictures show bodies stacked in hallways and unrefrigerated rental trucks. ThinkStock via Getty Images. I'll never be OK.". 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. Few state laws provide any oversight. Copyright 2019 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. According to Reuters Sunset Mesa Funeral Home had seen their call volume increase from 59 in 2015 to 128 in 2017. Heads went for $500 and $250 for a knee prices at significantly discounted rates compared to other body brokers. She took orders for body parts via Hotmail, email records show. This comes after a dozen . Her father, Alan Koch, ran the crematory, Hess said. 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. It was kind of creepy.. Instead of paying the standard $695 cremation fee to . All they got was the urn and a death certificate no other paperwork. 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. 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. 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. We did not provide our messaging to be repurposed in this brochure, and are following up, said spokeswoman Erin Dolin. 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. Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the worlds largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. In Colorado and most other states, it's legal for funeral homes to sell items taken from corpses, including the gold found in teeth. No such degree exists in the United States for morticians, veteran funeral directors say. 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. Connie Hansons sons body parts were also allegedly sold. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. Meme Eberspacher, Dunlaps niece, was at his bedside the night that Dunlap died. ", Funeral home remains under federal investigation. 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. 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.. 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. "We don't even have a name for a crime this heinous. . The federal inquiry began several months ago, shortly after Reuters interviewed a half-dozen workers who formerly worked for Hess. Its not something that can be fixed., Hancock was notified by the FBI that her husbands body parts had been sold without her consent. Build the strongest argument relying on authoritative content, attorney-editor expertise, and industry defining technology. More Reuters investigations and long-form narratives, Got a confidential news tip? On January 8, 2011, U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords and 18 others were shot during a constituent meeting held in a supermarket parking lot in Casas Adobes, Arizona, in the Tucson metropolitan area. Authorities are now investigating. Kent also operates funeral homes in Silverthorne, Idaho Springs, Fairplay and Buena Vista. Market data provided by Factset. (If they've been left standing. The Daily Sentinel Megan Hess Feb 4, 2023, 5:26 PM SGT. Shannon and Staci Kent did not respond to interview requests from The Denver Post. SENTINEL FILE PHOTO Sisters Layna and Janet Hutt hold photos of their father, Raymond Hutt, who died in 2016 at the age of 96. 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. She has been told parts of her husbands body were sold on the world-wide market. . Investigators discovered 31 dead bodies, some of which were in advanced stages of decomposition. By: Tony Kovaleski Posted at 6:00 PM, Oct 31, 2019 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. Buyers ranged from educators and scientists to individuals in the medical industry. You could hear the machine going, she told Kovaleski. No one would pick up the phone. Thank you for thinking of me.. Legal Statement. A Colorado funeral home operator accused of illegally selling body parts and giving clients fake ashes has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. High Country News reports that, duringthe initial investigation, the FBI tested 128 samples of remains tied to Sunset Mesa. 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. 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. E.W. "It's concerning to the court that defendant Hess refuses to assume any responsibility for her conduct.". 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. Market data provided by Factset. Why Donor Services was unable to trace Dunlaps head remains unclear. I went through a very bad crisis losing the baby, Cavanagh said. None of the former employees or associates Reuters interviewed worked directly for the body broker business. A former employee has alleged misconduct regarding the disposal of the deceased at Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas. But days went by and she couldnt reach anyone. 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.. 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. Email: newsroom@coloradosun.com 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. These people deserve to know why what was done to them was done to them. 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. At the time of publication, no charges had been filed against the coroner, though Colorado has suspended the business licenses for both funeral homes. Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. 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 . 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. No one would pick up the phone. 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. Nursing Home Under Investigation After Woman Declared Dead Found Breathing at Funeral Home The incident happened at the Water's Edge Rehab and Nursing Center in Port Jefferson, the. According to Reuters Sunset Mesa Funeral Home had seen their call volume increase from 59 in 2015 to 128 in 2017. PUBLISHED 8:21 PM CT Apr. No federal law prohibits the buying and selling of human body parts to be used in research and education. And as of. 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. Thats when E.W. Funeral Director Daily take: I have a hard time fathoming what may have went on at this funeral home. . The Daily Sentinel reports that Megan Hess faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison after entering the plea Tuesday in Grand Junction. 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. In 2020, authorities charged the two with mail fraud and illegal transportation of hazardous materials. The focus and extent of the federal probe into the Hess operation is unclear, and the FBI also declined to comment. 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, 45, and her mother, Shirley Koch, operated the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose. A price quote Hess sent to an Arizona medical training lab in 2016 offered torsos for $1,000 each. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, 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. felt they were too heavy to be those of a stillborn child, and submitted them for analysis. 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. Body snatcher, vile, pure evil, sociopath, are the words they used when asked to describe Hess. The Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services building in Montrose, Colorado, U.S., December 16, 2017. The Daily Sentinel reportsthat Megan Hess faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison after entering the plea Tuesday in Grand Junction. All rights reserved. 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