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. Telling stories that matter in a dynamic, evolving state. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. 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 runs Sunset Mesa, a funeral home, and Donor Services, a body broker operation from the same building in Montrose. They cut him up in pieces and sent them all over the place.. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Sam Tabachnik is a roving reporter for The Denver Post, focusing on stories outside metro Denver. 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. 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. Kent is already facing charges of perjury and official misconduct for sending wife Staci Kent, who is not authorized to act as a deputy coroner, to death scenes on at least three occasions, according to a September 2019 grand jury indictment. 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. All rights reserved. He has served as Lake County coroner since 2012 and was reelected to a four-year term in November 2018. No one would pick up the phone. Body snatcher, vile, pure evil, sociopath, are the words they used when asked to describe Hess. (REUTERS). 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. Its a community struggling to understand the stories and the accusations about what happened in the back room at Sunset Mesa. I know these are not his ashes because his body parts went all over the country, Hanson said. 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. All rights reserved. Suppliers of transplant tissue must obtain federal recognition and operate as charities. Ive been violated, said Alena Holloman. But days went by and she couldnt reach anyone. Thats when E.W. . But selling body parts such as heads, arms and spines which is what Hess did for use in research or education is not regulated by federal law. 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. As she mourned the loss of her son, Cavanagh was referred to the Kent Funeral Home in Gypsum to do the cremation. pleaded guilty to fraud in July after a . The startling discovery led to a further investigation of oversight in the funeral industry. Unfortunately, the attention wasn't focused on the town's natural beauty or tourism opportunities. Neither addressed the issue about the teeth. 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. She took orders for body parts via Hotmail, email records show. Catch up on the days top five stories every weekday afternoon. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. 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. 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. 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. In Colorado and most other states, it's legal for funeral homes to sell items taken from corpses, including the gold found in teeth. Hess, 45, and her mother, Shirley Koch, operated the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose. Both Hess and Koch originally had pleaded not guilty to the charges. The owner of the funeral homes, Shannon Kent, is also Lake Countys coroner. Now the women wonder how many others might have had the same experience. Chantal Reh. The focus and extent of the federal probe into the Hess operation is unclear, and the FBI also declined to comment. The most comprehensive solution to manage all your complex and ever-expanding tax and compliance needs. 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. Megan Hess, a former Colorado funeral home director, chopped up over 500 . She showed me her collection of gold teeth one day, said Escher, who helped manage a former cremation-marketing business owned by Hess. Build the strongest argument relying on authoritative content, attorney-editor expertise, and industry defining technology. 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. Updated: 8:07 PM MDT September 14, 2021. More Reuters investigations and long-form narratives, Got a confidential news tip? 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. No one returned her voicemails. We did not provide our messaging to be repurposed in this brochure, and are following up, said spokeswoman Erin Dolin. In the late aughts, the town of Montrose, Colorado, made national headlines. Feb 4, 2023, 5:26 PM SGT. 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. Staci Kent arrived to one of those death scenes without a body bag, which spurred an argument with authorities, the indictment notes. A price quote Hess sent to an Arizona medical training lab in 2016 offered torsos for $1,000 each. 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 . 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. In court on Tuesday, Hess declined to speak to the judge. 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.. Shannon and Staci Kent, 45, of Leadville were charged on Friday with attempted tampering with a deceased human body. With a population of about 20,000, Montrose is a community surrounded by the beauty of the Rocky Mountains. Copyright 2019 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The Green Funeral. The judge ordered that Hess and Koch be sent to prison immediately. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, Its tentacles go throughout not only the country but the world.. There are no ethics there when you do that. However, on Thursday, Colorado police arrested Shannon and Staci Kent after finding a decaying corpse in a funeral home they previously operated. a contrarian view? 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. Hansons box included wires and what appear to be old batteries. The Lake County Sheriffs Office confirmed an active criminal investigation is underway. 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. 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. The back of the brochure featured the logo Donate Life, the national brand that promotes organ donation and is managed by Donate Life America, a nonprofit group. I said I dont want to hear anymore.. But it provided an important public service, she said. Finally Reh and her boyfriend went to the funeral home with the expectation that they would see their baby. Hancock is one of many family members who has learned the cremains she was given by the owners of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose contained items and materials that were not her husband. Each edition is filled with exclusive news, analysis and other behind-the-scenes information you wont find anywhere else. Denver attorneys Mike Berg and Dave Teselle now represent more than 50 families who claim Hess and her parents victimized them. At the time of publication, no charges had been filed against the coroner, though Colorado has suspended the business licenses for both funeral homes. 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. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. I'll never be OK.". Thousands more patients could benefit from life saving and healing eye and tissue donations.. Its sickening, said Hanson. The next year,. There is even more money to be made in dissecting those bodies and selling the parts. It is illegal in the United States to sell organs such as hearts, kidneys and tendons for transplant; they must be donated. No federal law prohibits the buying and selling of human body parts to be used in research and education. . More by The Associated Press, Got a story tip? Thank you for thinking of me.. 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 These people deserve to know why what was done to them was done to them. "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. My mother and my mothers body has been desecrated.. Two months later, after hearing nothing from Hess, Schum went to Sunset Mesa to retrieve her friend's ashes. 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 . . A A A Colorado-based funeral home director has been sentenced to 20 years in prison stemming from a litany of charges including fraud and illegally selling the body parts or bodies of approximately 500 individuals whose families did not consent to that practice. But the business arrangement is highly unusual. Further, the van was holding two other bodies that needed to be removed.. This comes after a dozen . 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. 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. 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. Thats when E.W. Colorado regulators shut Sunset Mesa down in February 2018, KMGH-TV reported. There, authorities also found dried bodily fluid on surgical equipment, the metal preparation table, and the floor. The Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services building in Montrose, Colorado, U.S., December 16, 2017. This all began when a severely decomposed body was reported by a state health inspector. Instead of paying the standard $695 cremation fee to . felt they were too heavy to be those of a stillborn child, and submitted them for analysis. A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. PUBLISHED 8:21 PM CT Apr. Last August, police received a complaint that funds provided to. Her revised online biography cited her high school degree and a love of veterinary medicine.. 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. 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. 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. In addition, a lawsuit has been filed by Shirley Hollenback and her daughter alleging that the remains she received purported to be the cremation ashes of her husband are somebody elses remains and not those of her husband. What You Need To Know. 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. Hess, however, charged families to donate their bodies $195, plus $300 more if relatives want cremated remains returned. Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. A funeral home in Crapaud, Prince Edward Island is under RCMP investigation for allegations of financial irregularities. "No, I did not," Hancock responded. Shannon and Staci Kent did not respond to interview requests from The Denver Post. The New York Times, a far-left outlet, admitted in a report that Trump's rollback of a rule from President Barack Reuters Investigates offers several ways to securely contact our reporters. [the FBI told me] his head was sent to so and so. "Our sweet mother, they dismembered her," Erin Smith said, selling her shoulders, knees and feet for profit. Prosecutors recommended a sentence for Hess of 12 to 15 years. . Non-compete agreements, Customer Experience, Community Engagement. 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. Email address: Colorado Funeral Home / Body Broker Continues Under Investigation, Acquisitions, buy-outs, creative ideas. Megan Hess, the owner of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, and her parents are now under investigation by the FBI. Take a look at some of Colorado's most notorious crimes. POCATELLO, Idaho A Pocatello funeral home under investigation by the Idaho Board of Morticians has had its licenses revoked. Kent operates six funeral homes in the states high country, which also include Buena Vista, Fairplay, Idaho Springs, and Silverthorne. Burg and Teselles law firm is currently suing body brokers in both Colorado and Arizona. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers. Pictures show bodies stacked in hallways and unrefrigerated rental trucks. In 2009, Hess also created a nonprofit called Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation, d/b/a Donor Services, a body broker service operated out of the same location as SMFD. 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. There are no ethics there when you do that.. A body bag was found to be leaking bodily fluids along with a container of animal remains which was also leaking fluids. 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. On Oct. 13, the state shut down both the Gypsum operation and . 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