Hess, however, charged families to donate their bodies $195, plus $300 more if relatives want cremated remains returned. 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. John Wayne Gacy's house has since been torn down and replaced with a new residence, built on the same land where Gacy reportedly buried many of his victims. Investigators discovered 31 dead bodies, some of which were in advanced stages of decomposition. The Bailey-Kent Funeral Home was the only option given to her for cremation under a certain weight, she said. She said she and her mother, Koch, handled about 10 cadavers a month in the back room. 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. Staci Kent arrived to one of those death scenes without a body bag, which spurred an argument with authorities, the indictment notes. 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Her 69-year-old mother, Shirley Koch, also pleaded guilty to fraud and was sentenced to 15 years. Leave a sympathy message to the family on the memorial page of Charles Lynch to pay them a last tribute. The body was identified by fingerprints as Victor Akubuo, 42, from Southern . 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. Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way. 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 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. Learn more about Colorado true crime stories in the gallery below. Now its possible its not my baby in the urn, Reh said. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. Drop us a note at tips@coloradosun.com. 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. The judge ordered that Hess and Koch be sent to prison immediately. Donating bodies, selling the parts: Frequently asked questions. Enter your email address to join 3,177 readers who subscribe to all Funeral Director articles. Specifics of the scope of theFBI investigation are unclear. 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. No such degree exists in the United States for morticians, veteran funeral directors say. 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. The 20-year term was the maximum allowed under law. At the focal point of the FBI probe: funeral director Megan Hess, who did not return Fox News request for a comment. 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. Subscribe to Funeral Director Daily The funeral home's owners, Megan Hess, 43, and her mother . Bailey-Kent Funeral Home, pictured at left, is one of two funeral homes owned by Shannon Kent now under criminal investigation. Koch told the judge she was sorry and took responsibility for her actions. Hess is tentatively set to be sentenced in January. Reuters Investigates offers several ways to securely contact our reporters. The Bailey-Kent Funeral Home was the only option given to her for cremation under a certain weight, she said. Holloman now deals with the guilt of knowing details of what happened to her moms body. According to Reuters Sunset Mesa Funeral Home had seen their call volume increase from 59 in 2015 to 128 in 2017. The body was identified as that of 42 . Below, find out where 25 of the most infamous crimes in history took place and what the locations are used for today. ", Funeral home remains under federal investigation. 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. 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. She showed Denver7 the container that she was given. 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). 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. Other charges against Hess will be dropped under a plea agreement, the Sentinel said. Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. Peck was given another six months of probation. Family and friends are welcome to leave their condolences on this memorial page and share them with the family. Reuters identified 34 body brokers that have been active across the United States during the past five years. 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. Hoping to get answers, Denver7 visited Hess home in Montrose. 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. 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. A Colorado funeral home operator accused of illegally selling body parts and giving clients fake ashes has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. Andrew Scheid has been the director at . Shannon and Staci Kent, 45, of Leadville were charged on Friday with attempted tampering with a deceased human body. He has served as Lake County coroner since 2012 and was reelected to a four-year term in November 2018. These people deserve to know why what was done to them was done to them. Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. There are currently 350 funeral home listings for the state of Colorado and we provide all the cemetery information for the state as well. I'll never be OK.". I see his body parts floating in space and I keep trying to grab them and put him back and I can't! The federal inquiry began several months ago, shortly after Reuters interviewed a half-dozen workers who formerly worked for Hess. There are no ethics there when you do that.. Its for the good of the world, and I like to help people, Hess said. Reached by phone at Sunset Mesa, Koch said she did not wish to talk with a Reuters reporter. In cases like Schum's, where a family did agree to donate a body part, Hess sold more than she had permission to. Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to fraud in July. These illegitimate businesses are buying and selling body parts just like anything off the shelf at Walmart, added Teselle. "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. 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. Why their loved ones were stolen from them, and they were given back dry cement or sand and told it was loved ones ashes, said Teselle. Finally Reh and her boyfriend went to the funeral home with the expectation that they would see their baby. She signed a contract with a Montrose funeral home to have his body cremated. The Donor Services brochure was criticized as deceptive by two major U.S. organ donation groups after Reuters shared it with them. She took orders for body parts via Hotmail, email records show. Hess, 45, and her mother, Shirley Koch, operated the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose. The name of the state is derived form the Spanish . 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. The. 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. 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.. I didnt believe in depression until I lost my baby, Cavanagh said. 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. Records from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies showthis was not the first time Kent has been in the crosshairs of state regulators. Propel Funeral Partners makes acquisitions. My mother and my mothers body has been desecrated.. However, on Thursday, Colorado police arrested Shannon and Staci Kent after finding a decaying corpse in a funeral home they previously operated. With a population of about 20,000, Montrose is a community surrounded by the beauty of the Rocky Mountains. 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. [wpforms id=436 title=true description=true]. 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. GRAND JUNCTION, COLORADO: On allegations of fraud and illegally selling body parts, a former owner of a funeral home in Colorado was given a 20-year term in federal prison. 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. Now the women wonder how many others might have had the same experience. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. 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.
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