Copyright 2019 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Owner of funeral home under investigation had history of violations Colorado Funeral Homes. Hess' lawyer said she has been unfairly vilified as a "witch," a "monster" and a "ghoul," when instead she is a "broken human being" whose conduct can be attributed to a traumatic brain injury at age 18. Instead of paying the standard $695 cremation fee to Colorado Cremation, Hesss former cremation marketing business, Dunlap paid Hess $495 to take his body. The Unaffiliated is our twice-weekly newsletter on Colorado politics and policy. This content was originally published here. 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. . Colorado regulators shut down the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in 2018. by Mr. Leadville | Oct 26, 2020 | Leadville News. Peck was given another six months of probation. Now the women wonder how many others might have had the same experience. (REUTERS). Andrew Scheid has been the director at . There are no ethics there when you do that. Colorado is nicknamed the "Centennial State" because when it became the 38th state, the United States turned 100 on August 1, 1876. Two months later, after hearing nothing from Hess, Schum went to Sunset Mesa to retrieve her friend's ashes. She says Shirley Koch came to pick up his body. did not receive a contract for funeral services, and only received the cremains after several calls to Kent, the order states. The conflict of interest of having a side business in body parts just leads to problems, said Steve Palmer, a funeral director in Cottonwood, Arizona, and former member of the policy board at the National Funeral Directors Association. Trump Vindicated, Biden Proven A Liar As NYT Admits Trump Rollback Had Colorado woman sentenced to 20 years for stealing, selling body parts The eye was never returned, said Eberspacher and Dunlaps friend, Ron Mabry. Read on to see why: At a glance, the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home appeared to be a business helping locals through the loss of their loved ones. . Access unmatched financial data, news and content in a highly-customised workflow experience on desktop, web and mobile. 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. Reuters began examining the Hess companies more than a year ago as part of the news agencys exploration of the human body trade, a virtually unregulated industry that largely operates in the shadows. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. Source: Bodies stacked up at Jeffersonville funeral home after - WDRB What You Need To Know. We did not provide our messaging to be repurposed in this brochure, and are following up, said spokeswoman Erin Dolin. Colorado funeral home owner sentenced in body sales case 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. It was kind of creepy.. 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. 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. 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. The price list is from an Arizona company shut down after an FBI raid five years ago. She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. Hoping to get answers, Denver7 visited Hess home in Montrose. Bailey-Kent Funeral Home, pictured at left, is one of two funeral homes owned by Shannon Kent now under criminal investigation. 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. Updated: 8:07 PM MDT September 14, 2021. The focus and extent of the federal probe into the Hess operation is unclear, and the FBI also declined to comment. There is even more money to be made in dissecting those bodies and selling the parts. In cases like Schum's, where a family did agree to donate a body part, Hess sold more than she had permission to. The couple got dressed up in matching outfits and brought a special camera. Chantal Reh, an Avon resident, went through a similar experience when she suffered a stillborn birth in August 2018. Shannon and Staci Kent did not respond to interview requests from The Denver Post. She took orders for body parts via Hotmail, email records show. 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. Another alleged victim said her mothers body was desecrated. Leaking body bags, unrefrigerated remains: Colorado funeral homes under 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. 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. E.W. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. 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. 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. Koch's central role was chopping up the bodies, court records show. Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors of Montrose handled the funeral . Selling body parts: Colorado's secret black market industry - KMGH In Colorado and most other states, it's legal for funeral homes to sell items taken from corpses, including the gold found in teeth. Thousands more patients could benefit from life saving and healing eye and tissue donations.. When asked if it contained her husbands cremains, she said, I dont know.. The Bailey-Kent Funeral Home was the only option given to her for cremation under a certain weight, she said. She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. 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. Other charges against Hess will be dropped under a plea agreement, the Sentinel said. Trial scheduled for ex-Lake County coroner, wife arrested after - KKTV The legislation has support from the state's largest trade association for funeral homes, the Colorado Funeral Directors Association. By: Tony Kovaleski Posted at 6:00 PM, Oct 31, 2019 Dunlap left one specific instruction: The glass eye that hed worn since a childhood accident should be removed and sent to his best friend. All they got was the urn and a death certificate no other paperwork. There are no ethics there when you do that. NBC10 . 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. Before referring questions to a lawyer, Hess spoke extensively with Reuters about her body broker company. 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. As funeral directors, while we dont do everything perfect, we should have the best interest of our client families at heart. Colorado funeral home known for history of misconduct | AP News Funeral Home Owner Brian Barnett Faces Charges in N.Y. Probe - Law & Crime Megan Hess & Shirley Koch Sunset Mesa Funeral Home body parts scam Its a profit business. The suspension order details a 2019 instance in which an unnamed individual arranged with Kents funeral home for the cremation of their stillborn child. (Google). Further, the van was holding two other bodies that needed to be removed.. One of Hesss donors was Rex Dunlap, a frugal Coloradan battling brain cancer. Extra charges are assessed if a body is embalmed or a funeral director is involved.