Legal Statement. 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. None of the former employees or associates Reuters interviewed worked directly for the body broker business. Kent kept giving excuses, Cavanagh said. 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. 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. Bailey-Kent Funeral Home, pictured at left, is one of two funeral homes owned by Shannon Kent now under criminal investigation. Drop us a note at tips@coloradosun.com. A Colorado funeral home is under federal investigation over accusations it doubled as a body broker firm, buying and selling human body parts, a Reuters special report revealed Tuesday. Megan Hess, the former operator of a Montrose funeral home convicted of selling body parts without family consent, was . 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. . It is illegal to buy or sell organs such as hearts, kidneys and tendons for transplant. 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. "Our sweet mother, they dismembered her," Erin Smith said, selling her shoulders, knees and feet for profit. 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. Leave a sympathy message to the family on the memorial page of Charles Lynch to pay them a last tribute. Hess, along with her mother and father, are all named in a lawsuit, which accuses them of using a backroom to dismember cadavers with a power saw and stack body parts in coolers. She did. They both plan to file complaints with the Department of Regulatory Affairs. Hess runs Sunset Mesa, a funeral home, and Donor Services, a body broker operation from the same building in Montrose. Body snatcher, vile, pure evil, sociopath, are the words they used when asked to describe Hess. One of Hesss donors was Rex Dunlap, a frugal Coloradan battling brain cancer. Im not interested. Prosecutors said she lied to more than 200 families, who received cremated ashes from bins mixed with the remains of different cadavers. A few days later, she was able to pick up the cremains, but like E.W., Cavanagh received no paperwork. 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. She mentioned on several occasions about how much money she would be getting per month, which blew my mind, said Jennifer Henderson, a former floral designer for Sunset Mesa. Telling stories that matter in a dynamic, evolving state. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Family and friends can send flowers and condolences in memory of the loved one. I see his body parts floating in space and I keep trying to grab them and put him back and I can't! According to the Johnstown, N.Y. Police Department, Brian M. Barnett, 35, who owns the since-shuttered Ehle . It was kind of creepy.. The home, located at 8215 W. Summerdale Ave., was sold for just shy of $400,000 in May 2021. 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 . The article also tells about how Sunset Mesa Funeral Home handled some services free of charge. 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. 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. 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. Peck was given another six months of probation. A human head and spine sold for $850, while a full pelvis all the way to the toes priced out at $2,850. 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. She showed me her collection of gold teeth one day, said Escher, who helped manage a former cremation-marketing business owned by Hess. The indictment accuses Kent of allowing his wife to go out to death scenes as a deputy coroner, even though she took no oath and an appointment had not been filed with the county clerk, as required by law. I just figured it was a legitimate business., When asked by Denver7 if she ever heard bodies being dismembered, Hampson said, you could hear the machine going. Asked if that machine was a saw, she said, Yes, you could hear that in the room (a back room at the funeral home). Reuters identified 34 body brokers that have been active across the United States during the past five years. She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. 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. 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. Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. We did not provide our messaging to be repurposed in this brochure, and are following up, said spokeswoman Erin Dolin. Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way. Fo His two shoulders went somewhere else. No one would pick up the phone. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers. Unfortunately, the attention wasn't focused on the town's natural beauty or tourism opportunities. 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. 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. No such degree exists in the United States for morticians, veteran funeral directors say. In February of 2018, Colorado regulators shut down the funeral home at the same time the FBI was investigating claims families did not receive the real cremains of their loved ones. Catch up on the days top five stories every weekday afternoon. 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. Why Donor Services was unable to trace Dunlaps head remains unclear. You know, they can't put his head back on his body, they can't put his arms and legs back on his body. ", Funeral home remains under federal investigation. According to Reuters Sunset Mesa Funeral Home had seen their call volume increase from 59 in 2015 to 128 in 2017. 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. 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. Colorado regulators have shut down the funeral home. The startling discovery led to a further investigation of oversight in the funeral industry. Funeral Director Daily take: I have a hard time fathoming what may have went on at this funeral home. They were arrested in 2020 and charged with six counts of mail fraud and three counts of illegal transportation of hazardous materials. 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. A state investigation by the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance now focuses on a Memphis funeral home that's also the focus of a Netflix reality show. More Reuters investigations and long-form narratives, Got a confidential news tip? The transfers were done through Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation and Donor Services, authorities said. Subscribe today to see what all the buzz is about. 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 court on Tuesday, Hess declined to speak to the judge. Seeing how this chapter is opening up again is incredible, its unbelievable. The NBC10 Investigators found bodies inside an unlicensed funeral home in Chester, Pennsylvania. The conflict of interest of having a side business in body parts just leads to problems. 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. She signed a contract with a Montrose funeral home to have his body cremated. At her funeral home, Hess charged families up to $1,000 for cremations that never occurred, prosecutors said, and she offered others free cremations in exchange for a body donation. Other charges against Hess will be dropped under a plea agreement, the Sentinel 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. 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.
Clumpy Discharge After Taking Fluconazole,
Fun Facts About University Of Arkansas,
Articles C