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. It is illegal to buy or sell organs such as hearts, kidneys and tendons for transplant. Dunlap left one specific instruction: The glass eye that hed worn since a childhood accident should be removed and sent to his best friend. Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way. Email address: Colorado Funeral Home / Body Broker Continues Under Investigation, Acquisitions, buy-outs, creative ideas. "No, I did not," Hancock responded. 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. I didnt believe in depression until I lost my baby, Cavanagh said. All they got was the urn and a death certificate no other paperwork. 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. 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. After receiving the cremains, E.W. Body brokers like Donor Services are also known as non-transplant tissue banks. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. You are not looking at the full disposition (of a body). The legislation has support from the state's largest trade association for funeral homes, the Colorado Funeral Directors Association. 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. 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. Reached by phone at Sunset Mesa, Koch said she did not wish to talk with a Reuters reporter. 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. Chantal Reh. Thousands more patients could benefit from life saving and healing eye and tissue donations.. You are looking at how to make money.. Legal Statement. The Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services building in Montrose, Colorado, U.S., December 16, 2017. 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. Andrew Scheid has been the director at . 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. A Colorado funeral home is under federal investigation over accusations it doubledas a body broker firm, buying and selling human body parts, aReuters special report revealedTuesday. Thats when E.W. However, on Thursday, Colorado police arrested Shannon and Staci Kent after finding a decaying corpse in a funeral home they previously operated. 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. Its tentacles go throughout not only the country but the world.. "Hess and Koch used their funeral home at times to essentially steal bodies and body parts using fraudulent and forged donor forms," prosecutor Tim Neff said in a court filing. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Instead, the media was interested in the dark history behind the town's funeral home, Sunset Mesa. More Reuters investigations and long-form narratives, Got a confidential news tip? Fo Escher said Koch, who embalmed and dismembered bodies, pulled teeth from some of the corpses to extract the gold in crowns or fillings. The Colorado Sun is a journalist-owned, award-winning news outlet based in Denver that strives to cover all of Colorado so that our state our community can better understand itself. I thought it was something that needs to be corrected," said state Senator Larry Crowder, one of the bills sponsors. 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 Bailey-Kent Funeral Home was the only option given to her for cremation under a certain weight, she said. Authorities also uncovered multiple refrigerated bodies which were wrapped in sheets or blankets but did not have any tags or paperwork identifying them. A former Colorado funeral home owner has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on charges of fraud and selling body parts without permission. This whole situation, oh, I thought it was part of my past.. 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. Sam Tabachnik is a roving reporter for The Denver Post, focusing on stories outside metro Denver. But it provided an important public service, she said. She said she and her mother, Koch, handled about 10 cadavers a month in the back room. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. Koch said she had sold a different batch a year prior, and they took the whole family to Disneyland in California on the gold that they cashed in, Escher said. 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 . The article also tells about how Sunset Mesa Funeral Home handled some services free of charge. 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. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. It was kind of creepy.. And it is not against the law to operate a so-called body broker firm from the same facility that houses a funeral home and crematory. It was kinda creepy., It is totally unregulated, said Burg. Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors of Montrose handled the funeral . A funeral service will be held on Saturday, March 4th 2023 at 10:30 AM at the First Church of the Nazarene (505 E Beatty Ave, Yuma, CO 80759). 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. Seeing how this chapter is opening up again is incredible, its unbelievable. 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. She has been told parts of her husbands body were sold on the world-wide market. Before referring questions to a lawyer, Hess spoke extensively with Reuters about her body broker company. Could, Lake County coroner turns in resignation letter, State suspends operations of Leadville, Gypsum funeral homes, 3 BULLETS TO THE BACK: The striking silence around a police, Last Season Hunters Harvested the Most Bucks in 21 Years | Outdoor Life, Republicans are barring medical boards from punishing doctors who prescribe ivermectin: report | Salon.com, Mead High School student gets musical Make-A-Wish surprise, Bruce Cassidy Defends Tuukka Rask After Tough Showing Vs. [the FBI told me] his head was sent to so and so. The Daily Sentinel reportsthat Megan Hess faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison after entering the plea Tuesday in Grand Junction. 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. 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. 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. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. I went through a very bad crisis losing the baby, Cavanagh said. are acquisitions larger in general? (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. 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. They were affiliated with her funeral business. Finally, after a month, she got Staci Kent on the phone and laid into her, asking why she hadnt heard anything about her sons cremains. They are distinct from the organ and tissue transplant industry, which the U.S. government closely regulates. Hoping to get answers, Denver7 visited Hess home in Montrose. 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. Downard Funeral Home Under Investigation, ISU Involved There are many events that have unfolded over the past couple weeks involving Downard Funeral Home, some including Idaho State University (ISU). All they got was the urn and a death certificate no other paperwork. [wpforms id=436 title=true description=true]. According to Jeffersonville Police Major Isaac Parker, the department began its investigation of the Lankford Funeral Home and Family Center in Jeffersonville on Friday. Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas is accused of a range of misdeeds, from not embalming or refrigerating bodies in a . In 2020, authorities charged the two with mail fraud and illegal transportation of hazardous materials. But days went by and she couldnt reach anyone. In mid-March, Kent received a letter of admonition" from the Office of Funeral Home and Crematory Registration after unembalmed, unrefrigerated remains were found in the Gypsum funeral home over 24 hours after the person had died. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers. In one instance, on March 10, 2019, Staci Kent was significantly delayed to the scene because the van she was using to pick up the body had a dead battery, bald tires and was buried in snow, prosecutors alleged. He covers everything from stolen art and towing to mobile homes and quirky stories that defy category. A former employee has alleged misconduct regarding the disposal of the deceased at Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas. The owner of the funeral homes, Shannon Kent, is also Lake Countys coroner. No one would pick up the phone. (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. Megan Hess, the owner of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, and her parents are now under investigation by the FBI. I know these are not his ashes because his body parts went all over the country, Hanson said. 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. Its for the good of the world, and I like to help people, Hess said. He has served as Lake County coroner since 2012 and was reelected to a four-year term in November 2018. Unfortunately, the attention wasn't focused on the town's natural beauty or tourism opportunities. 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 were greeted at the door by her father, who told us to leave the property. A judge sentenced a Colorado funeral-home owner who carved up corpses and sold parts of them without families' permission to 20 years in prison on Tuesday, according to the Department of Justice. 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. In Colorado and most other states, it also is legal for funeral homes to sell items recovered from dead bodies, such as gold dental work. Kent also operates funeral homes in Silverthorne, Idaho Springs, Fairplay and Buena Vista. It only investigates a funeral home if a complaint is filed, he said. The suspension order details a 2019 instance in which an unnamed individual arranged with Kents funeral home for the cremation of their stillborn child. Authorities are now investigating. She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. Hess, 45, and her mother, Shirley Koch, operated the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose.
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