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. Thank you for thinking of me.. 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. parents are now under investigation by the FBI. 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 Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services building in Montrose, Colorado, U.S., December 16, 2017. . The Justice Department did not respond to Fox News' request for comment. I see his body parts floating in space and I keep trying to grab them and put him back and I can't! Its tentacles go throughout not only the country but the world.. Colorado does not regulate body brokers. 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. Records from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies showthis was not the first time Kent has been in the crosshairs of state regulators. 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. [wpforms id=436 title=true description=true]. A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. That's part of my nightmare. 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. Reuters Investigates offers several ways to securely contact our reporters. He covers everything from stolen art and towing to mobile homes and quirky stories that defy category. The Denver attorney is referring to the limited and nonexistent regulation nationwide and worldwide regarding the procurement and selling of bodies and body parts. A price quote Hess sent to an Arizona medical training lab in 2016 offered torsos for $1,000 each. Propel Funeral Partners makes acquisitions. 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 She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. 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. After an extensive investigation into this and dozens of similar cases, federal prosecutors on Tuesday charged the owners of the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, Colorado, on suspicion of illegally brokering the body parts of deceased individuals they were hired to cremate. Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way. A Colorado funeral home operator who was accused of selling and stealing body parts pleaded guilty to mail fraud on Tuesday, the US justice department . Megan Hess, the former operator of a Montrose funeral home convicted of selling body parts without family consent, was . Ive been violated, said Alena Holloman. PUBLISHED 8:21 PM CT Apr. 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. Now its possible its not my baby in the urn, Reh said. High Country News reports that, duringthe initial investigation, the FBI tested 128 samples of remains tied to Sunset Mesa. Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the worlds largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. In the late aughts, the town of Montrose, Colorado, made national headlines. 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.. 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. When Schum hesitated, Hess said she would waive the cremation fee if Schum agreed to donate her friend's bladder to science. 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. The Daily Sentinel reportsthat Megan Hess faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison after entering the plea Tuesday in Grand Junction. Theyre united by the pain of believing they purchased cremation services for their loved ones, knowing they never agreed to let Hess dismember the bodies. They were affiliated with her funeral business. Its sickening, said Hanson. 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. . (REUTERS). 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.. Jacque Hampson spent a year working as Hesss personal assistant. Im not interested. Colorado is nicknamed the "Centennial State" because when it became the 38th state, the United States turned 100 on August 1, 1876. 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. did not receive a contract for funeral services, and only received the cremains after several calls to Kent, the order states. Updated: 8:07 PM MDT September 14, 2021. 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. The Unaffiliated is our twice-weekly newsletter on Colorado politics and policy. 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. Staci Kent, however, wouldnt let them see the baby, Reh said. The conflict of interest of having a side business in body parts just leads to problems,Steve Palmer, a funeral director in Cottonwood, Ariz., and former member of the policy board at the National Funeral Directors Association, said. 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.. Her father, Alan Koch, ran the crematory, Hess said. Colorado Funeral Homes. The brochure, provided to Reuters by Hess during the 2016 interview, continued this way: Every year, organ, eye and tissue transplants provide hope to tens of thousands of people suffering from disease, injury, trauma or blindness. The eye was never returned, said Eberspacher and Dunlaps friend, Ron Mabry. However, on Thursday, Colorado police arrested Shannon and Staci Kent after finding a decaying corpse in a funeral home they previously operated. It only investigates a funeral home if a complaint is filed, he said. Hoping to get answers, Denver7 visited Hess home in Montrose. 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. [the FBI told me] his head was sent to so and so. More Reuters investigations and long-form narratives, Got a confidential news tip? Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. The next year,. She has been told parts of her husbands body were sold on the world-wide market. But days went by and she couldnt reach anyone. 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. Just about any adult can run for coroner in Colorado. E.W. 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. On July 2, Jeffersonville Police officials announced dozens of bodies were found decomposing inside a funeral home in the Southern Indiana city, just across the river from Louisville. 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. Kent operates six funeral homes in the states high country, which also include Buena Vista, Fairplay, Idaho Springs, and Silverthorne. All rights reserved. Be an organ donor, a slogan often used by organ transplant advocates. pleaded guilty to fraud in July after a . An agent with the FBI has interviewed at least four former employees who worked for funeral director and body broker Megan Hess, seeking information about how she operates her businesses, the former workers told Reuters. Learn more about Colorado true crime stories in the gallery below. Details uncovered in the FBI investigation were shared with her. Lake County coroner Shannon Kent owns both the Bailey-Kent Funeral Home in Leadville about 100 miles southeast of Denver and the Kent Funeral Home Gypsum about 133 miles west of the Mile High City, The Denver Post reported Friday. 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. In Colorado and most other states, it's legal for funeral homes to sell items taken from corpses, including the gold found in teeth. Part 8: Former workers describe troubling practices at this mortuary-body broker, including allegations of deceptive marketing and an account of how gold dental work was removed from corpses and sold. Since that time, according to the article, Reuters has not been able to find another business in the United States that operates a funeral home, crematory, and body broker business in the same location and operated by the same owner. 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. The transfers were done through Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation and Donor Services, authorities said. The body was identified as that of 42 . More by The Associated Press, Got a story tip? The owner of the funeral homes, Shannon Kent, is also Lake Countys coroner. 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. Colorado Ordway Funeral Homes Eaton Family Funeral Home Eaton Family Funeral Home in Ordway 202 E 3rd St Ordway, CO 81063 (719) 267-4221 Click to show location on map Zoom About Eaton Family Funeral Home We understand that losing a loved one can be a very stressful time. Twenty-six victims described their horror at discovering what had happened to their loved ones. I didnt believe in depression until I lost my baby, Cavanagh said. The funeral home's owners, Megan Hess, 43, and her mother . . 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. I went through a very bad crisis losing the baby, Cavanagh said. 06, 2021. 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. Chantal Reh, an Avon resident, went through a similar experience when she suffered a stillborn birth in August 2018. The Lankford Funeral Home and Family Center is under investigation by Jeffersonville Police Detective Division after 31 deceased individuals and the post-cremated remains of 16 individuals. All rights reserved. On Oct. 13, the state shut down both the Gypsum operation and . Koch told the judge she was sorry and took responsibility for her actions. 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. 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. Hess, 45, and her mother, Shirley Koch, operated the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose. He has served as Lake County coroner since 2012 and was reelected to a four-year term in November 2018. This content was originally published here. 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. The gruesome details of the case which authorities say included more than 500 victims drew international attention and shined a light on the . Like many, Hanson found out about her son Frederick during a phone call from an FBI agent. Hess is tentatively set to be sentenced in January. The owners of that funeral home are facing charges of desecrating human remains more than four months after investigators found the body, which had been stored in a non-refrigerated room for years. Kent also operates funeral homes in Silverthorne, Idaho Springs, Fairplay and Buena Vista. She took orders for body parts via Hotmail, email records show. 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. (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. Hiring funeral directors: Do you look for IQ or EQ? "This is the most emotionally draining. The judge ordered that Hess and Koch be sent to prison immediately. The fact that now the business is also making money from the sale of body parts if that is not being told to the family, it is unethical and probably illegal, if only as deception, said Robert Fells, general counsel of the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association, an industry trade group.