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Drop us a note at tips@coloradosun.com. The Daily Sentinel Megan Hess At the nursing home, Eberspacher said she reminded Koch that the glass eye was supposed to be returned and suggested it be popped out there. 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. Hess is tentatively set to be sentenced in January. Peck was given another six months of probation. 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. A price quote Hess sent to an Arizona medical training lab in 2016 offered torsos for $1,000 each. . Instead of paying the standard $695 cremation fee to . The attorney, Carol Viner, asked Reuters to refrain from contacting Hess employees for any reason.. Sam Tabachnik is a roving reporter for The Denver Post, focusing on stories outside metro Denver. Non-compete agreements, Customer Experience, Community Engagement. "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. 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. We did not provide our messaging to be repurposed in this brochure, and are following up, said spokeswoman Erin Dolin. 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. This whole situation, oh, I thought it was part of my past.. Hess, however, charged families to donate their bodies $195, plus $300 more if relatives want cremated remains returned. Both have become experts on the secret industry of selling body parts on a world wide market. 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. And much like E.W. The Lake County Sheriffs Office confirmed an active criminal investigation is underway. Im not interested. He has served as Lake County coroner since 2012 and was reelected to a four-year term in November 2018. Seeing how this chapter is opening up again is incredible, its unbelievable. 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. Screen for heightened risk individual and entities globally to help uncover hidden risks in business relationships and human networks. or redistributed. 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. It is also the only state that doesnt license funeral directors. 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. This is a way we can eliminate or alleviate the black market on body parts, Crowder added. The Bailey-Kent Funeral Home was the only option given to her for cremation under a certain weight, she said. Megan Hess, the former operator of a Montrose funeral home convicted of selling body parts without family consent, was . Telling stories that matter in a dynamic, evolving state. All rights reserved. did not receive a contract for funeral services, and only received the cremains after several calls to Kent, the order states. Bailey-Kent Funeral Home, pictured at left, is one of two funeral homes owned by Shannon Kent now under criminal investigation. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. There are no ethics there when you do that. Reuters has reported in a report that you can read here that the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home of Montrose, Colorado, and its associated business, Donor Services, remains under investigation by the FBI. A few days later, she was able to pick up the cremains, but like E.W., Cavanagh received no paperwork. Hancocks story started after her husband, Thomas, passed away. You know, they can't put his head back on his body, they can't put his arms and legs back on his body. She showed me her collection of gold teeth one day, said Escher, who helped manage a former cremation-marketing business owned by Hess. Chantal Reh. Few state laws provide any oversight. After reading the states suspension order this week, two women told The Denver Post that the circumstances surrounding E.W. sound eerily familiar. 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. 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. Chantal Reh, an Avon resident, went through a similar experience when she suffered a stillborn birth in August 2018. 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. 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. You are looking at how to make money.. The. 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.. The Denver attorney is referring to the limited and nonexistent regulation nationwide and worldwide regarding the procurement and selling of bodies and body parts. All they got was the urn and a death certificate no other paperwork. Why Donor Services was unable to trace Dunlaps head remains unclear. 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Extra charges are assessed if a body is embalmed or a funeral director is involved. 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. A funeral home in Crapaud, Prince Edward Island is under RCMP investigation for allegations of financial irregularities. The other nine were structured as nonprofits, including Donor Services the only broker Reuters could find that still doubles as a funeral home. In Colorado, the states organ donation program, Donor Alliance, said Hesss marketing language could be confusing to people.. While operating Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, Colorado, Hess and Koch sold remains of the deceased for body broker services without family consent and gave families ashes that were. But experts say its the underground black market that also contributes to the increased demand for body parts. 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. Twenty-five of the brokers were for-profit corporations. 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. Jacque Hampson spent a year working as Hesss personal assistant. Paul Hawthorne, Getty Images. In the late aughts, the town of Montrose, Colorado, made national headlines. 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. Torsos are a popular specimen these days, she wrote. It was kinda creepy., It is totally unregulated, said Burg. All rights reserved. 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. Escher said Koch, who embalmed and dismembered bodies, pulled teeth from some of the corpses to extract the gold in crowns or fillings. Reached by phone at Sunset Mesa, Koch said she did not wish to talk with a Reuters reporter. 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. Further, the van was holding two other bodies that needed to be removed.. 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. Colorado regulators have shut down the funeral home. He had been dismembered. As funeral directors, while we dont do everything perfect, we should have the best interest of our client families at heart. N.Y. This all began when a severely decomposed body was reported by a state health inspector. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way. 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. No such degree exists in the United States for morticians, veteran funeral directors say. By: Tony Kovaleski Posted at 6:00 PM, Oct 31, 2019 Catch up on the days top five stories every weekday afternoon. Staci Kent arrived to one of those death scenes without a body bag, which spurred an argument with authorities, the indictment notes. Learn more about Colorado true crime stories in the gallery below. The article also tells about how Sunset Mesa Funeral Home handled some services free of charge. 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. (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. 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. 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. Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. Hiring funeral directors: Do you look for IQ or EQ? 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 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. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. A Colorado funeral home operator accused of illegally selling body parts and giving clients fake ashes has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. ), Windsors Newest Hot Spot is Open and Smells of Glorious Bacon [Photos], The Cheapest Home in Weld County is Selling for Less Than $90K, Local Fort Collins Photographer Wins 3rd Grammy in the Visual Arts, WATCH: This Deleted Scene From The Office Totally Calls Out Colorado, The 2023 Cheyenne Frontier Days Concert Lineup Has Been Announced, This Weeks Larimer Countys Most Wanted: Dallas Rusk, 3 Northern Colorado Districts in Top 10 for Slow Internet Access, New Life Planned for this Beloved Greeley Building, the dark history behind the town's funeral home, READ: This 1993 Steamboat Springs Murder Became One of the Nation's Most Chilling Cases. 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. Colorado does not regulate body brokers. Two months later, after hearing nothing from Hess, Schum went to Sunset Mesa to retrieve her friend's ashes. 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. Staci Kent, however, wouldnt let them see the baby, Reh said. The price list is from an Arizona company shut down after an FBI raid five years ago. Bailey-Kent Funeral Home, pictured at left, is one of two funeral homes owned by Shannon Kent now under criminal investigation. Its tentacles go throughout not only the country but the world.. I know these are not his ashes because his body parts went all over the country, Hanson said. Donating bodies, selling the parts: Frequently asked questions. Reuters could not independently verify this figure. Shannon and Staci Kent did not respond to interview requests from The Denver Post. 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. pleaded guilty to fraud in July after a . 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. 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.. A body bag was found to be leaking bodily fluids along with a container of animal remains which was also leaking fluids.