We did not provide our messaging to be repurposed in this brochure, and are following up, said spokeswoman Erin Dolin. Family and friends are welcome to leave their condolences on this memorial page and share them with the family. Hess is tentatively set to be sentenced in January. He had been dismembered. Its sickening, said Hanson. 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. 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 charges defray the cost of picking up the deceased, she said in the 2016 interview. 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. 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 lawsuit estimates the three were making $40,000 a month from the sale of body parts. Body brokers like Donor Services are also known as non-transplant tissue banks. (REUTERS). The investigation of Kents funeral homes began in February after the sheriffs office received a complaint by a client regarding the handling of human remains. 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 Daily Sentinel reports that Megan Hess faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison after entering the plea Tuesday in Grand Junction. 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. Koch's central role was chopping up the bodies, court records show. 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 . At her funeral home, Hess charged families up to $1,000 for cremations that never occurred, prosecutors said, and she offered others free cremations in exchange for a body donation. The Bailey-Kent Funeral Home was the only option given to her for cremation under a certain weight, she said. ThinkStock via Getty Images. Separate from the FBI inquiry, Reuters has learned that Colorado state funeral regulators are investigating Hess's funeral home, Sunset Mesa. 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. By submitting your email to receive this newsletter, you agree to our. It was kind of creepy.. Hiring funeral directors: Do you look for IQ or EQ? Just about any adult can run for coroner in Colorado. Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to fraud in July. The probe into the coroners funeral homes started back in February, after a client complained to the Lake County Sheriffs Office about the handling of human remains. pleaded guilty to fraud in July after a . Hess, however, charged families to donate their bodies $195, plus $300 more if relatives want cremated remains returned. 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. 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. 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. 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. Its for the good of the world, and I like to help people, Hess said. 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 really an underground industry that most people dont know about, said attorney Michael Burg. Megan Hess, 46, operated the Sunset Mesa funeral home in Montrose, Colorado, alongside a body-parts entity called Donor Services, where she undertook the grisly scheme, starting in 2010. 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. 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. . Her father, Alan Koch, ran the crematory, Hess said. 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. Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. She showed Denver7 the container that she was given. Fo But it provided an important public service, she 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. The gruesome details of the case which authorities say included more than 500 victims drew international attention and shined a light on the . The state's Department of Regulatory Agencies. The conflict of interest of having a side business in body parts just leads to problems. Other charges against Hess will . All they got was the urn and a death certificate no other paperwork. 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. Reuters Investigates offers several ways to securely contact our reporters. felt they were too heavy to be those of a stillborn child, and submitted them for analysis. 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. Thank you for thinking of me.. [wpforms id=436 title=true description=true]. There, authorities also found dried bodily fluid on surgical equipment, the metal preparation table, and the floor. 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. Megan Hess, the owner of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, and her parents are now under investigation by the FBI. You know, they can't put his head back on his body, they can't put his arms and legs back on his body. 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. Learn more about Colorado true crime stories in the gallery below. I see his body parts floating in space and I keep trying to grab them and put him back and I can't! The couple got dressed up in matching outfits and brought a special camera. Now the women wonder how many others might have had the same experience. some timely learning opportunities for our readers, Dont forget Low-tech to build your brand. Jacque Hampson spent a year working as Hesss personal assistant. This content was originally published here. When Mabry and Eberspacher went to Sunset Mesa the morning after Dunlap died, Hess and Koch said they could not locate the eye, Eberspacher said. All rights reserved. Holloman now deals with the guilt of knowing details of what happened to her moms body. "We don't even have a name for a crime this heinous. When Reuters visited her facility in 2016, Hess said Donor Services represented just 15 percent or so of her total business. Dunlap left one specific instruction: The glass eye that hed worn since a childhood accident should be removed and sent to his best friend. Email: newsroom@coloradosun.com Prosecutors recommended a sentence for Hess of 12 to 15 years. The Colorado Office of Funeral Home and Crematory Registration has no employees dedicated solely to it and an annual budget of less than $85,000. Chantal Reh, an Avon resident, went through a similar experience when she suffered a stillborn birth in August 2018. 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. 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). Buyers ranged from educators and scientists to individuals in the medical industry. 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. It was kinda creepy., It is totally unregulated, said Burg. 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. Torsos are a popular specimen these days, she wrote. The allegations of offering free services and then selling body parts without the knowledge of the client family is beyond my scope of thinking as to what funeral directors should be doing. Reuters could not independently verify this figure. That means almost anyone, regardless of expertise, can dissect and sell human remains. 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. A body bag was found to be leaking bodily fluids along with a container of animal remains which was also leaking fluids. Megan Hess, the owner of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, and her parents are now under investigation by the FBI. MONTROSE, Colorado The Federal Bureau of Investigation is interviewing former employees of a funeral home whose owner runs a side business on the same premises selling human body parts. Thats when E.W. It is illegal in the United States to sell organs such as hearts, kidneys and tendons for transplant; they must be donated. After reading the states suspension order this week, two women told The Denver Post that the circumstances surrounding E.W. sound eerily familiar. A former Colorado funeral home operator has pleaded guilty to stealing and then selling hundreds of human bodies or body parts to people who were buying the remains for scientific, medical or . Heads went for $500 and $250 for a knee prices at significantly discounted rates compared to other body brokers. Her 69-year-old mother, Shirley Koch, also pleaded guilty to fraud and was sentenced to 15 years. It is a business and it is a profit business, added Burg. A human head and spine sold for $850, while a full pelvis all the way to the toes priced out at $2,850. 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.. 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. But days went by and she couldnt reach anyone. 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. (McGovern said no industry regulated by the Division of Professions and Occupations has regulators assigned exclusively to it.) Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way. 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. Now its possible its not my baby in the urn, Reh said. The couple got dressed up in matching outfits and brought a special camera. Twenty-six victims described their horror at discovering what had happened to their loved ones. 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