colorado funeral home under investigation

06, 2021. Hess runs Sunset Mesa, a funeral home, and Donor Services, a body broker operation from the same building in Montrose. The Justice Department did not respond to Fox News' request for comment. Colorado regulators shut down the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in 2018. 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. After an extensive investigation into this and dozens of similar cases, federal prosecutors on Tuesday charged the owners of the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, Colorado, on suspicion of illegally brokering the body parts of deceased individuals they were hired to cremate. Further, the van was holding two other bodies that needed to be removed.. 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. 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. . Her 69-year-old mother, Shirley Koch, also pleaded guilty to fraud and was sentenced to 15 years. 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. Reuters has reported in a report that you can read here that the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home of Montrose, Colorado, and its associated business, Donor Services, remains under investigation by the FBI. Seeing how this chapter is opening up again is incredible, its unbelievable. 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. The owner of the funeral homes, Shannon Kent, is also Lake Countys coroner. 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. 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. She said, No, no, well take care of that first thing in the morning, recalled Eberspacher. In their filing, prosecutors stressed the "macabre nature" of Hess' scheme and described it as one of the most significant body parts cases in recent U.S. history. 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. 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. When Reuters reported earlier this year about the unusual twin businesses of owner Megan Hess, federal agents raided the facility and state regulators ordered the funeral home to be shut down. These people deserve to know why what was done to them was done to them. "It's concerning to the court that defendant Hess refuses to assume any responsibility for her conduct.". Peck was given another six months of probation. Since that time, according to the article, Reuters has not been able to find another business in the United States that operates a funeral home, crematory, and body broker business in the same location and operated by the same owner. 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 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. After receiving the cremains, E.W. 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. 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Lake County coroner Shannon Kent owns both the Bailey-Kent Funeral Home in Leadville about 100 miles southeast of Denver and the Kent Funeral Home Gypsum about 133 miles west of the Mile High City, The Denver Post reported Friday. He has served as Lake County coroner since 2012 and was reelected to a four-year term in November 2018. 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. POCATELLO, Idaho Police in Pocatello are investigating a local funeral home after they said a state health inspector contacted them about the business and a badly decomposed body was found. Koch told the judge she was sorry and took responsibility for her actions. But days went by and she couldnt reach anyone. After reading the states suspension order this week, two women told The Denver Post that the circumstances surrounding E.W. sound eerily familiar. Now its possible its not my baby in the urn, Reh said. Staci Kent, however, wouldnt let them see the baby, Reh said. 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. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Unfortunately, the attention wasn't focused on the town's natural beauty or tourism opportunities. 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. After contacting Hess in December about the content of the brochure, Dolin said Hess told the organ transplant group that the brochure in question was old and has not been used for some time.. I didnt believe in depression until I lost my baby, Cavanagh said. 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. Now the women wonder how many others might have had the same experience. The price list is from an Arizona company shut down after an FBI raid five years ago. 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. I thought it was something that needs to be corrected," said state Senator Larry Crowder, one of the bills sponsors. Why Donor Services was unable to trace Dunlaps head remains unclear. 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. This comes after a dozen . 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Feb 4, 2023, 5:26 PM SGT. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. . First published on Wed 6 Jul 2022 10.36 EDT. He had been dismembered. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! As funeral directors, while we dont do everything perfect, we should have the best interest of our client families at heart. Prior to the raid, the cost of purchasing an arm and shoulder was $600. 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. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Extra charges are assessed if a body is embalmed or a funeral director is involved. Other staff members also said that it was never disclosed to donor families that the corpses would be sold for profit a potentially illegal practice. She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. 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 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. Hess continues running a dual operation. 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.. After reading the states suspension order this week, two women told The Denver Post that the circumstances surrounding E.W. sound eerily familiar. Instead, the media was interested in the dark history behind the town's funeral home, Sunset Mesa. It comes on the heels of a law passed in 2020 that. 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. 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. Subscribe to Funeral Director Daily The New York Times, a far-left outlet, admitted in a report that Trump's rollback of a rule from President Barack The funeral home's owners, Megan Hess, 43, and her mother . The Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services building in Montrose, Colorado, U.S., December 16, 2017. 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. 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.. 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.. According to Reuters Sunset Mesa Funeral Home had seen their call volume increase from 59 in 2015 to 128 in 2017. The Donor Services brochure was criticized as deceptive by two major U.S. organ donation groups after Reuters shared it with them. 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. 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. In an interview in 2016, she described Donor Services as a small, family 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 remains Hess returned to families were also not those of their loved ones. They are distinct from the organ and tissue transplant industry, which the U.S. government closely regulates. 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. The Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services building in Montrose, Colorado, U.S., December 16, 2017. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Colorado Funeral Homes. According to theDenver Post, prosecutors reached a plea agreement with Hess this year regarding a 2020 indictment against her and her mother. Market data provided by Factset. 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. Legal Statement. A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. The Lake County Sheriffs Office confirmed an active criminal investigation is underway. In court on Tuesday, Hess declined to speak to the judge. Body brokers like Donor Services are also known as non-transplant tissue banks. Such a partnership may raise ethical concerns because it creates a financial incentive for the funeral home. A few days later, she was able to pick up the cremains, but like E.W., Cavanagh received no paperwork. 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. She said she and her mother, Koch, handled about 10 cadavers a month in the back room. The home, located at 8215 W. Summerdale Ave., was sold for just shy of $400,000 in May 2021. In Colorado, the states organ donation program, Donor Alliance, said Hesss marketing language could be confusing to people.. I see his body parts floating in space and I keep trying to grab them and put him back and I can't! The recent parade of early deaths has hit close to home. Hancocks story started after her husband, Thomas, passed away. 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. [the FBI told me] his head was sent to so and so. You are looking at how to make money.. SCI 4Q Revenue and Year End Revenue lower than comparables, Funeral Director Daily, The business of Funeral Care. The Unaffiliated is our twice-weekly newsletter on Colorado politics and policy. Prosecutors recommended a sentence for Hess of 12 to 15 years. There are no ethics there when you do that.. did not receive a contract for funeral services, and only received the cremains after several calls to Kent, the order states. Its really an underground industry that most people dont know about, said attorney Michael Burg. At Donor Services, her body parts business, Hess can generate a greater return on the dead, a different price list reviewed by Reuters showed. 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. Each edition is filled with exclusive news, analysis and other behind-the-scenes information you wont find anywhere else. Reuters could find no other operation active in the United States that houses a funeral home, crematory and body broker in the same facility and under the same ownership. Two Colorado funeral homes are under criminal investigation after authorities found a unrefrigerated body and learned that at least one family had received a stillborn's cremains mixed. The NBC10 Investigators found bodies inside an unlicensed funeral home in Chester, Pennsylvania. pleaded guilty to fraud in July after a . The ex-employee said that she witnessed a collection of gold teeth that Hess mother allegedly extracted from the corpses fillings or crowns and that the familycashed in on the gold to pay for a trip to Disneyland in California. This content was originally published here. In 2020, authorities charged the two with mail fraud and illegal transportation of hazardous materials. ThinkStock via Getty Images. 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. Hess and Koch also shipped bodies and body parts that tested positive for, or belonged to people who died from, infectious diseases including Hepatitis B and C, and HIV, despite certifying to buyers that the remains were disease-free, authorities said. The emotional, daylong hearing brought to a close a five-year legal odyssey that began when the FBI raided the funeral home in February 2018, following a Reuters investigation that found Sunset Mesa to be unlike any other business in the country. A change of plea hearing for Koch is scheduled for July 12. Specifics of the scope of theFBI investigation are unclear. Some former staff members of Sunset Mesa said they never heard Hess disclose to donors that the bodies would be sold for profit. According to High Country News, Hess was running the funeral home in conjunction with a non-profit called Donor Services Inc., through which she sold "donated" body parts to companies a practice referred to as body brokering. 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. We did not provide our messaging to be repurposed in this brochure, and are following up, said spokeswoman Erin Dolin. 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. Two months later, after hearing nothing from Hess, Schum went to Sunset Mesa to retrieve her friend's ashes. Catch up on the days top five stories every weekday afternoon. Staci Kent arrived to one of those death scenes without a body bag, which spurred an argument with authorities, the indictment notes. Records from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies showthis was not the first time Kent has been in the crosshairs of state regulators. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. But experts say its the underground black market that also contributes to the increased demand for body parts. On January 8, 2011, U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords and 18 others were shot during a constituent meeting held in a supermarket parking lot in Casas Adobes, Arizona, in the Tucson metropolitan area. No federal law prohibits the buying and selling of human body parts to be used in research and education. On Monday, the family of Ramon Lara Castillo a 63-year-old Nashville house painter who succumbed to liver cancer in October 2020 filed a federal lawsuit against former funeral director Reid Van Ness and the operators of a funeral home in Lewisburg, Tenn. Roommates and friends of Castillo paid Van Ness $1,800 to ship the body home to his .

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