She showed me her collection of gold teeth one day, said Escher, who helped manage a former cremation-marketing business owned by Hess. 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. 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 The price list is from an Arizona company shut down after an FBI raid five years ago. Former Colorado funeral home owner sentenced to 20 years for selling There are no ethics there when you do that.. The suspension order details a 2019 instance in which an unnamed individual arranged with Kents funeral home for the cremation of their stillborn child. In one instance, on March 10, 2019, Staci Kent was significantly delayed to the scene because the van she was using to pick up the body had a dead battery, bald tires and was buried in snow, prosecutors alleged. Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. Responding to the investigations and details reported out of Montrose, Colorado lawmakers could become the first in the country to pass a law making it illegal for funeral home or crematory owners to operate as a body broker. A spokeswoman for Donate LifeAmerica said in an email that Hesss firm is not a federally designated organ procurement organization and has no permission to use the Donate Life brand. Indiana funeral home fell behind on processing bodies, which began to Did you ever consent to have this family mutilate your husbands body? asked Denver7. She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. Such a partnership may raise ethical concerns because it creates a financial incentive for the funeral home. It only investigates a funeral home if a complaint is filed, he said. Now its possible its not my baby in the urn, Reh said. 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. Lancaster County funeral home under investigation for misconduct This whole situation, oh, I thought it was part of my past.. 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. The transfers were done through Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation and Donor Services, authorities said. A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. The eye was never returned, said Eberspacher and Dunlaps friend, Ron Mabry. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. Some former staff members of Sunset Mesa said they never heard Hess disclose to donors that the bodies would be sold for profit. Colorado funeral home owner sentenced in body sales case N.Y. And as of. All they got was the urn and a death certificate no other paperwork. John Wayne Gacy House: Now. This content was originally published here. We were greeted at the door by her father, who told us to leave the property. POCATELLO, Idaho A Pocatello funeral home under investigation by the Idaho Board of Morticians has had its licenses revoked. In the late aughts, the town of Montrose, Colorado, made national headlines. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. No one would pick up the phone. The legislation has support from the state's largest trade association for funeral homes, the Colorado Funeral Directors Association. 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. This whole situation, oh, I thought it was part of my past.. The Lake County Sheriffs Office confirmed an active criminal investigation is underway. 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. 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. No federal law prohibits the buying and selling of human body parts to be used in research and education. Montrose, Colorado: A former funeral home operator pleads guilty to 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. 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 Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. 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. Her 69-year-old mother, Shirley Koch, also pleaded guilty to fraud and was sentenced to 15 years. The FBI hired a lab to test the cremains given to the families, and they have determined the boxes of ash contain cement, sand and other non-human particles. 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. You are looking at how to make money.. Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the worlds largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. I didnt believe in depression until I lost my baby, Cavanagh said. Though Koch dissected bodies in the back room at Sunset Mesa, they claimed that the body had to be sent out for harvesting, Eberspacher said. We did not provide our messaging to be repurposed in this brochure, and are following up, said spokeswoman Erin Dolin. 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. Woman Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Selling Body Parts A funeral director who also works as a body broker could have a financial incentive to sell a body for its valuable parts rather than provide an inexpensive burial, for instance. She took orders for body parts via Hotmail, email records show. When Reuters visited her facility in 2016, Hess said Donor Services represented just 15 percent or so of her total business. A woman in Colorado has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for illegally selling body parts. . Colorado Funeral Home Caught Selling Bodies Intended For Cremation . SENTINEL FILE PHOTO Sisters Layna and Janet Hutt hold photos of their father, Raymond Hutt, who died in 2016 at the age of 96. As a result, Peck and his funeral home were required to pay a $2,500 fine and $5,000 in investigative costs and attorney fees. Chantal Reh, an Avon resident, went through a similar experience when she suffered a stillborn birth in August 2018. Separate from the FBI inquiry, Reuters has learned that Colorado state funeral regulators are investigating Hess's funeral home, Sunset Mesa. That means almost anyone, regardless of expertise, can dissect and sell human remains. But days went by and she couldnt reach anyone. 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.. Hess made donating a body online easy. Other charges against Hess will . FBI scrutinizes Colorado funeral home with side business selling body The recent parade of early deaths has hit close to home. Funeral Home Owner Brian Barnett Faces Charges in N.Y. Probe - Law & Crime Now its possible its not my baby in the urn, Reh said. . Ive had nightmares about it, said Fredericka Freddie Hancock. Colorado regulators have shut down the funeral home. PUBLISHED 8:21 PM CT Apr. 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 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. Earlier this month, authorities from both Lake and Eagle counties encountered a strong odor of decomposition when they searched the Leadville funeral home, reads. I thought it was something that needs to be corrected," said state Senator Larry Crowder, one of the bills sponsors. NBC10 . Colorado woman sentenced to 20 years for stealing, selling body parts 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. 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. Funeral homes owned by Lake County coroner under investigation 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. and Cavanagh, Reh had an immensely difficult time reaching the Kents, the phone ringing unanswered for weeks. 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.