At the focal point of the FBI probe: funeral director Megan Hess, who did not return Fox News request for a comment. The Denver attorney is referring to the limited and nonexistent regulation nationwide and worldwide regarding the procurement and selling of bodies and body parts. Some of those family members are now questioning if the services were held free of charge while Donor Services sent some of the remains (body parts) to clients for payments without the knowledge and consent of family members. Hess had created a nonprofit organization in 2009 called Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation as a body-broker service doing business as Donor Services, authorities said. Funeral home investigation: What to know about the discovery of 31 GRAND JUNCTION A Colorado funeral home operator accused of illegally selling body parts and giving clients fake ashes has pleaded guilty to mail fraud in federal court. 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. Funeral home owners charged with desecrating human remains 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. 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. The body was identified as that of 42 . (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. FBI scrutinizes funeral home that also makes money selling - Reuters Fo In Colorado, the states organ donation program, Donor Alliance, said Hesss marketing language could be confusing to people.. Now its possible its not my baby in the urn, Reh said. 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. Buyers ranged from educators and scientists to individuals in the medical industry. My mother and my mothers body has been desecrated.. It can't be fixed, said Hancock. 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. Separate from the FBI inquiry, Reuters has learned that Colorado state funeral regulators are investigating Hesss funeral home, Sunset Mesa. Body brokers sometimes market their services using language that could mislead prospective donors into believing the broker handles organ donations. Drop us a note at tips@coloradosun.com. They both plan to file complaints with the Department of Regulatory Affairs. She told Contact7 Investigates that she heard bodies being dismembered. To betray that help, in a way that the businesses here are alleged to have done, brings nothing but a lack of credibility to all funeral service professionals. Bailey-Kent Funeral Home, pictured at left, is one of two funeral homes owned by Shannon Kent now under criminal investigation. 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. Colorado Funeral Home Owners Charged With Brokering Body Parts Leave a sympathy message to the family on the memorial page of Charles Lynch to pay them a last tribute. 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 . Former workers told Reuters that Hess and Koch conducted unauthorized dismemberments of bodies, and a few weeks after a 2018 story was published, the FBI raided the business. Reuters identified 34 body brokers that have been active across the United States during the past five years. Shannon and Staci Kent did not respond to interview requests from The Denver Post. . Family and friends can send flowers and condolences in memory of the loved one. This whole situation, oh, I thought it was part of my past.. Funeral Home Operator Jailed After Selling Body Parts of 500-Plus Selling body parts: Colorado's secret black market industry - KMGH Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. GRAND JUNCTION A Colorado funeral home operator accused of illegally selling body parts and giving clients fake ashes has pleaded guilty to mail fraud in federal court. A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. 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. But it provided an important public service, she said. Staci Kent, however, wouldnt let them see the baby, Reh said. 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. N.Y. Nursing Home Under Investigation After Woman Declared Dead Found Funeral homes owned by a Colorado coroner under investigation following Email address: Colorado Funeral Home / Body Broker Continues Under Investigation, Acquisitions, buy-outs, creative ideas. 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. Colorado Funeral Home Caught Selling Bodies Intended For Cremation Colorado funeral home owner Megan Hess and her mother who sold body When Reuters visited her facility in 2016, Hess said Donor Services represented just 15 percent or so of her total business. and Cavanagh, Reh had an immensely difficult time reaching the Kents, the phone ringing unanswered for weeks. Jeffersonville funeral home under investigation after police find DENVER -- To many it is simply the unthinkable. Records from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies showthis was not the first time Kent has been in the crosshairs of state regulators. Twenty-six victims described their horror at discovering what had happened to their loved ones. Shannon and Staci Kent, 45, of Leadville were charged on Friday with attempted tampering with a deceased human body. Colorado funeral home owner accused of stealing body parts pleads or redistributed. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers. some timely learning opportunities for our readers, Dont forget Low-tech to build your brand. Market data provided by Factset. It was kind of creepy.. Hoping to get answers, Denver7 visited Hess home in Montrose. The Justice Department did not respond to Fox News' request for comment. 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. 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. 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. are acquisitions larger in general? Prosecutors recommended a sentence for Hess of 12 to 15 years. She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. Before referring questions to a lawyer, Hess spoke extensively with Reuters about her body broker company. When Reuters reported earlier this year about the unusual twin businesses of owner Megan Hess, federal agents raided the facility and state regulators ordered the funeral home to be shut down. 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. High Country News reports that, duringthe initial investigation, the FBI tested 128 samples of remains tied to Sunset Mesa. N.Y. Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. Its really an underground industry that most people dont know about, said attorney Michael Burg. 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. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. This all began when a severely decomposed body was reported by a state health inspector. Colorado regulators shut down the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in 2018. 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. These people deserve to know why what was done to them was done to them. 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. I see his body parts floating in space and I keep trying to grab them and put him back and I can't! 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. Megan Hess & Shirley Koch Sunset Mesa Funeral Home body parts scam The Lake County Sheriffs Office confirmed an active criminal investigation is underway. Now the women wonder how many others might have had the same experience. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. But no federal law governs the sale of cadavers or body parts for use in research or education. 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. 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. Enter your email address to join 3,177 readers who subscribe to all Funeral Director articles. 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. Ducks, Used body bags, medical gloves and other surgical equipment with dried bodily fluid on them piled on the floor, Bodily fluids leaking out of a body bag containing an individual who had not been refrigerated, A container of animal remains leaking fluids, Several bodies in refrigeration wrapped in sheets or blankets without identifying tags or paperwork, An unmarked casket containing a stillborn infant that was abandoned, the suspension order states, Paperwork scattered several feet deep on the floor. 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. The Lake County Sheriffs Office confirmed an active criminal investigation is underway. Andrew Scheid has been the director at . NBC10 . 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). Former Colorado funeral home owner sentenced to 20 years for selling 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. Koch told the judge she was sorry and took responsibility for her actions. 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. Further, the van was holding two other bodies that needed to be removed.. Just about any adult can run for coroner in Colorado. All rights reserved. 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. But days went by and she couldnt reach anyone. One of Hesss donors was Rex Dunlap, a frugal Coloradan battling brain cancer. parents are now under investigation by the FBI. I'll never be OK.". 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. Megan Hess, the owner of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, and her parents are now under investigation by the FBI. The home, located at 8215 W. Summerdale Ave., was sold for just shy of $400,000 in May 2021. It is illegal to buy or sell organs such as hearts, kidneys and tendons for transplant. All they got was the urn and a death certificate no other paperwork. Paul Hawthorne, Getty Images. But two said Hess sometimes bragged about how lucrative it was to sell bodies and body parts. 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. pleaded guilty to fraud in July after a . In cases like Schum's, where a family did agree to donate a body part, Hess sold more than she had permission to. No one returned her voicemails. . 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. TX Funeral Service Commission Investigating Golden Gate - Spectrum News In the late aughts, the town of Montrose, Colorado, made national headlines. Seeing how this chapter is opening up again is incredible, its unbelievable. 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. A body bag was found to be leaking bodily fluids along with a container of animal remains which was also leaking fluids. 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. The name of the state is derived form the Spanish . Thank you, she said before ending the call. There are no ethics there when you do that. As she mourned the loss of her son, Cavanagh was referred to the Kent Funeral Home in Gypsum to do the cremation. That means almost anyone, regardless of expertise, can dissect and sell human remains. The legislation has support from the state's largest trade association for funeral homes, the Colorado Funeral Directors Association. Funeral Home Owner Brian Barnett Faces Charges in N.Y. Probe - Law & Crime No one would pick up the phone. Extra charges are assessed if a body is embalmed or a funeral director is involved. Body snatcher, vile, pure evil, sociopath, are the words they used when asked to describe Hess. 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. It comes on the heels of a law passed in 2020 that. 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. 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. Police investigating Pocatello funeral home - KTVB Donor Services has circulated a brochure that reads: Be a hero. FBI probe into Colorado funeral home that doubled as body - Fox News Amid FBI investigation, state closes case on Montrose funeral home Kent operates six funeral homes in the states high country, which also include Buena Vista, Fairplay, Idaho Springs, and Silverthorne. Hansons box included wires and what appear to be old batteries. 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. 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. 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. 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. Its a profit business. 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. Legal Statement. . 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. "We don't even have a name for a crime this heinous. Its a community struggling to understand the stories and the accusations about what happened in the back room at Sunset Mesa. I went through a very bad crisis losing the baby, Cavanagh said. Lynette "Diamond" Hardaway's Cause of Death Revealed None of the former employees or associates Reuters interviewed worked directly for the body broker business. 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. [the FBI told me] his head was sent to so and so. By submitting your email to receive this newsletter, you agree to our. E.W. Learn more about Colorado true crime stories in the gallery below. The owner of the funeral homes, Shannon Kent, is also Lake Countys coroner. Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas is accused of a range of misdeeds, from not embalming or refrigerating bodies in a . Email: newsroom@coloradosun.com Officials also found the "post-cremation remains" of 16 people, according . Hancocks story started after her husband, Thomas, passed away. Funeral home owner who dismembered corpses, sold body parts sentenced Arnold Roger Tesnow Obituary (1944 - 2023) | Colorado Springs, Colorado The NBC10 Investigators found bodies inside an unlicensed funeral home in Chester, Pennsylvania. Feb 4, 2023, 5:26 PM SGT. The Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services building in Montrose, Colorado, U.S., December 16, 2017.
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