colorado funeral home under investigation

Copyright 2019 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. 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. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, Staci Kent, however, wouldnt let them see the baby, Reh said. Records from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies showthis was not the first time Kent has been in the crosshairs of state regulators. Two months later, after hearing nothing from Hess, Schum went to Sunset Mesa to retrieve her friend's ashes. 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. Last August, police received a complaint that funds provided to. E.W. It only investigates a funeral home if a complaint is filed, he said. The funeral home's owners, Megan Hess, 43, and her mother . See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. You could hear the machine going, she told Kovaleski. In reality, Burg added, they are just trying to get those bodies free and then they are going to chop them up themselves in parts and make money off the bodies.. But two said Hess sometimes bragged about how lucrative it was to sell bodies and body parts. Shannon and Staci Kent did not respond to interview requests from The Denver Post. 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. Its a community struggling to understand the stories and the accusations about what happened in the back room at Sunset Mesa. The suspension order details a 2019 instance in which an unnamed individual arranged with Kents funeral home for the cremation of their stillborn child. 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. There are no ethics there when you do that. Thats when E.W. High Country News reports that, duringthe initial investigation, the FBI tested 128 samples of remains tied to Sunset Mesa. 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. 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. 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. Thats when E.W. Seeing how this chapter is opening up again is incredible, its unbelievable. 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. 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. Koch's central role was chopping up the bodies, court records show. Pam Boyd/pboyd@vaildaily.com. The focus and extent of the federal probe into the Hess operation is unclear, and the FBI also declined to comment. She showed Denver7 the container that she was given. The 20-year term was the maximum allowed under law. Extra charges are assessed if a body is embalmed or a funeral director is involved. In another call two months later, Staci Kent responded to a death scene without a body bag, the indictment states, which led to an argument with law enforcement. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. 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. Suppliers of transplant tissue must obtain federal recognition and operate as charities. It is the only state in the country that does not license funeral home and. "We don't even have a name for a crime this heinous. 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. Torsos are a popular specimen these days, she wrote. Colorado regulators have shut down the funeral home. She was sold, embalmed and shipped out within just a few hours of her death, said Holloman. 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. NBC10 . Megan Hess, the owner of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, and her parents are now under investigation by the FBI. Further, the van was holding two other bodies that needed to be removed.. E.W. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. The home, located at 8215 W. Summerdale Ave., was sold for just shy of $400,000 in May 2021. Escher said Koch, who embalmed and dismembered bodies, pulled teeth from some of the corpses to extract the gold in crowns or fillings. He would not discuss the nature of those complaints or any action it may be taking. 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 change of plea hearing for Koch is scheduled for July 12. Investigators discovered 31 dead bodies, some of which were in advanced stages of decomposition. Copyright 2019 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. At Sunset Mesa, Hess charged $1,995 for a simple burial and $695 for a basic cremation, according to price lists reviewed by Reuters. The industry leader for online information for tax, accounting and finance professionals. With heavy hearts, we announce the death of Arnold Roger Tesnow (Colorado Springs, Colorado), born in Worth, Illinois, who passed away on February 25, 2023 at the age of 78. Specifics of the scope of theFBI investigation are unclear. State Bans Coroner Shannon Kent From Private Business After Remains, Waste Found At Home-Based Colorado Funeral Home December 3, 2020 / 7:33 AM / CBS Colorado Its a profit business. The report also noted that a former employee at Sunset Mesa was troubled by Hess mother, who was responsible for embalming and dismembering the dead bodies. 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. In mid-November, she wrote an email to a surgical training company saying that she could supply a human torso, according to messages reviewed by Reuters. Most brokers who sell body parts offer to cremate part of the donors body for free. He has served as Lake County coroner since 2012 and was reelected to a four-year term in November 2018. 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. 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. 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. Body snatcher, vile, pure evil, sociopath, are the words they used when asked to describe Hess. 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. The 20-year term was the maximum allowed under law. Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors of Montrose handled the funeral . Separate from the FBI inquiry, Reuters has learned that Colorado state funeral regulators are investigating Hess's funeral home, Sunset Mesa. Its for profit and people dont realize there is a huge demand for cadavers and body parts., That demand comes from all over the world including medical schools, law enforcement agencies, the military and a variety of other industries looking to legitimately purchase bodies and body parts for credible research. 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. 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. Officials also found the "post-cremation remains" of 16 people, according . After receiving the cremains, E.W. Fo 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. Email address: Colorado Funeral Home / Body Broker Continues Under Investigation, Acquisitions, buy-outs, creative ideas. Andrew Scheid has been the director at . 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. I saw a lot inside as far as, you know, body parts and things like that. She continued, But I was oblivious to what was going on. But no federal law governs the sale of cadavers or body parts for use in research or education. At the nursing home, Eberspacher said she reminded Koch that the glass eye was supposed to be returned and suggested it be popped out there. Details uncovered in the FBI investigation were shared with her. 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. After reading the states suspension order this week, two women told The Denver Post that the circumstances surrounding E.W. sound eerily familiar. A Medical Examiner can often discover hidden evidence of injury to explain a sudden death, or can document natural diseases to show that no foul play was involved in the death. (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 scope of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home and Donor Services remains unclear at this time while investigators are trying to get a handle on that issue. None of the former employees or associates Reuters interviewed worked directly for the body broker business. Each edition is filled with exclusive news, analysis and other behind-the-scenes information you wont find anywhere else. You are looking at how to make money.. An Upstate New York funeral home proprietor is facing imminent criminal charges for allegedly keeping dead human bodies in "advanced states of decomposition" in his business and its detached garage, local officials announced Friday. 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. Hiring funeral directors: Do you look for IQ or EQ? Separate from the FBI inquiry, Reuters has learned that Colorado state funeral regulators are investigating Hesss funeral home, Sunset Mesa. There are people and businesses who spend millions and millions of dollars," Teselle added, "trafficking in these body parts as if they were nothing more than cans of soup or loaves of bread., I was pretty shocked, said Jacque Hampson, a former employee of the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose. by Mr. Leadville | Oct 26, 2020 | Leadville News. The Daily Sentinel reports that Megan Hess faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison after entering the plea Tuesday in Grand Junction. The Bailey-Kent Funeral Home was the only option given to her for cremation under a certain weight, she said. She showed me her collection of gold teeth one day, said Escher, who helped manage a former cremation-marketing business owned by Hess. Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way. 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. A grand jury indictment said that from 2010 through 2018, Hess and Koch offered to cremate bodies and provide the remains to families at a cost of $1,000 or more, but many of the cremations never occurred. Its for the good of the world, and I like to help people, Hess said. The Lake County Sheriffs Office confirmed an active criminal investigation is underway. 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 surgical-training companies and other firms which bought the arms, legs, heads and torsos from Hess did not know they had been fraudulently obtained, prosecutors said. Chantal Reh, an Avon resident, went through a similar experience when she suffered a stillborn birth in August 2018. 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. Denver attorneys Mike Berg and Dave Teselle now represent more than 50 families who claim Hess and her parents victimized them. The Bailey-Kent Funeral Home was the only option given to her for cremation under a certain weight, she said. The startling discovery led to a further investigation of oversight in the funeral industry. It can't be fixed, said Hancock. 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. Her 69-year-old mother, Shirley Koch, also pleaded guilty to fraud and was sentenced to 15 years.

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