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Other charges against Hess will be dropped under a plea agreement, the Sentinel said. Funeral-home owner gets 20 years in prison for cutting up dead bodies And much like E.W. Officials also found the "post-cremation remains" of 16 people, according . Catch up on the days top five stories every weekday afternoon. 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. The price list is from an Arizona company shut down after an FBI raid five years ago. He had been dismembered. Just about any adult can run for coroner in Colorado. I didnt believe in depression until I lost my baby, Cavanagh said. 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. Its a community struggling to understand the stories and the accusations about what happened in the back room at Sunset Mesa. Thousands more patients could benefit from life saving and healing eye and tissue donations.. E.W. found out the cremains contained ashes from an infant, but also long bone fragments of an older/larger adult individual and metal, according to the suspension order. 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. Records from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies showthis was not the first time Kent has been in the crosshairs of state regulators. 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. "This is the most emotionally draining. Now its possible its not my baby in the urn, Reh said. Montrose funeral home owner who allegedly sold - The Colorado Sun (REUTERS). 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. 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. felt they were too heavy to be those of a stillborn child, and submitted them for analysis. Hiring funeral directors: Do you look for IQ or EQ? All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. By: Tony Kovaleski Posted at 6:00 PM, Oct 31, 2019 Charles "Paul" Lynch Obituary (1953 - 2023) | Yuma, Colorado [wpforms id=436 title=true description=true]. Ive been violated, said Alena Holloman. After losing his ability to conduct cremation or funeral home services in December, Kent's Silverthorne funeral parlor sat empty until this month when the new tenant, Colorado Funeral Homes . Colorado regulators shut down the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in 2018. There is even more money to be made in dissecting those bodies and selling the parts. Unfortunately, the attention wasn't focused on the town's natural beauty or tourism opportunities. 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. Colorado funeral home owners sentenced to federal prison for selling According to theDenver Post, prosecutors reached a plea agreement with Hess this year regarding a 2020 indictment against her and her mother. Megan Hess, a former Colorado funeral home director, chopped up over 500 . Access unmatched financial data, news and content in a highly-customised workflow experience on desktop, web and mobile. Think about it, the FBI came in and raided them, and they raided them because they knew this body broker this was getting bigger and bigger and bigger, said Berg. The attorney, Carol Viner, asked Reuters to refrain from contacting Hess employees for any reason.. 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. DENVER, Colorado - 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 . In an interview in 2016, she described Donor Services as a small, family business. This compassionate help is the essence of what we do. Jan 3 (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 without permission. Legal Statement. In 2018, Schum got a call from FBI Special Agent John Busch, who told her that Sunset Mesa had sold not just her friend's body, but many others. Most brokers who sell body parts offer to cremate part of the donors body for free. 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. "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. 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. When Schum hesitated, Hess said she would waive the cremation fee if Schum agreed to donate her friend's bladder to science. That means almost anyone, regardless of expertise, can dissect and sell human remains. Source: Bodies stacked up at Jeffersonville funeral home after - WDRB 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. On March 16, the director of the Office of Funeral Home and Crematory Registration sent Kent a letter of admonition after a state investigator found unembalmed, unrefrigerated bodily remains in his Gypsum funeral home more than 24 hours from the date of death. Shannon and Staci Kent, 45, of Leadville were charged on Friday with attempted tampering with a deceased human body. 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 told Contact7 Investigates that she heard bodies being dismembered. 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. Colo. funeral home accused of doubling as body parts broker - KMGH Market data provided by Factset. The probe into the coroners funeral homes started back in February, after a client complained to the Lake County Sheriffs Office about the handling of human remains. 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. High Country News reports that, duringthe initial investigation, the FBI tested 128 samples of remains tied to Sunset Mesa. 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. 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. 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. 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.. Pettyjohn now lives with the memory of what happened to the body of her 26-year-old son, Brian. 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 Colorado, the states organ donation program, Donor Alliance, said Hesss marketing language could be confusing to people.. I'll never be OK.". Colorado is nicknamed the "Centennial State" because when it became the 38th state, the United States turned 100 on August 1, 1876. Woman Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Selling Body Parts Feb 4, 2023, 5:26 PM SGT. Buyers ranged from educators and scientists to individuals in the medical industry. This comes after a dozen . 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 Colorado regulators have shut down the funeral home. Few state laws provide any oversight. The news agency had also sent written questions to Hess and her attorney about Kochs alleged handling of gold teeth. Thank you for thinking of me.. The Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services building in Montrose, Colorado, U.S., December 16, 2017. A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. 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. FBI probe into Colorado funeral home that doubled as body - Fox News You are looking at how to make money.. But experts say its the underground black market that also contributes to the increased demand for body parts. Each edition is filled with exclusive news, analysis and other behind-the-scenes information you wont find anywhere else. Seeing how this chapter is opening up again is incredible, its unbelievable. Arnold Roger Tesnow Obituary (1944 - 2023) | Colorado Springs, Colorado Selling body parts: Colorado's secret black market industry - KMGH . She was sold, embalmed and shipped out within just a few hours of her death, said Holloman. Former Colorado funeral home owner sentenced to 20 years for selling 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. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers. 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. 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.