colorado funeral home under investigation

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. 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Kent also still faces second-degree official misconduct charges stemming from a September 2019 grand jury indictment in the Fifth Judicial District. A Colorado funeral home operator who was accused of selling and stealing body parts pleaded guilty to mail fraud on Tuesday, the US justice department . 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 . 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. Hancock is one of more than five dozen family members currently suing the family that operated the now shut-down Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose. Family and friends can send flowers and condolences in memory of the loved one. Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the worlds largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. 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. I went through a very bad crisis losing the baby, Cavanagh said. Hancocks story started after her husband, Thomas, passed away. 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. You are not looking at the full disposition (of a body). Twenty-five of the brokers were for-profit corporations. Its a profit business. The scope of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home and Donor Services remains unclear at this time while investigators are trying to get a handle on that issue. You are not looking at the full disposition (of a body). 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 startling discovery led to a further investigation of oversight in the funeral industry. 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. Instead of paying the standard $695 cremation fee to . 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. Thank you, she said before ending the call. The federal case was triggered by a 2016-2018 Reuters investigative series about the sale of body parts in the United States, a virtually unregulated industry. These people deserve to know why what was done to them was done to them. Golden Gate's owner denies all allegations. Thousands more patients could benefit from life saving and healing eye and tissue donations.. Its sickening, said Hanson. Specifics of the scope of theFBI investigation are unclear. 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. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. The federal inquiry began several months ago, shortly after Reuters interviewed a half-dozen workers who formerly worked for Hess. What You Need To Know. 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. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. On Oct. 13, the state shut down both the Gypsum operation and . 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. Megan Hess, the owner of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, and her parents are now under investigation by the FBI. Reuters began examining the Hess companies more than a year ago as part of the news agencys exploration of the human body trade, a virtually unregulated industry that largely operates in the shadows. Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. 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. It is the only state in the country that does not license funeral home and. She said, No, no, well take care of that first thing in the morning, recalled Eberspacher. Fo I know these are not his ashes because his body parts went all over the country, Hanson said. Each edition is filled with exclusive news, analysis and other behind-the-scenes information you wont find anywhere else. 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. Colorado regulators have shut down the funeral home. After reading the states suspension order this week, two women told The Denver Post that the circumstances surrounding E.W. sound eerily familiar. 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.. Family and friends are welcome to leave their condolences on this memorial page and share them with the family. Buyers ranged from educators and scientists to individuals in the medical industry. Most brokers who sell body parts offer to cremate part of the donors body for free. Body brokering is not illegal in Colorado; however, a 2020 Denver7 report noted that Hess, along with her mother, were donating bodies without the consent of the deceased's family. Some former staff members of Sunset Mesa said they never heard Hess disclose to donors that the bodies would be sold for profit. Finally Reh and her boyfriend went to the funeral home with the expectation that they would see their baby. 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. Enter your email address to join 3,177 readers who subscribe to all Funeral Director articles. Heads went for $500 and $250 for a knee prices at significantly discounted rates compared to other body brokers. MONTROSE, Colo. (CBS4) - Federal authorities raided a funeral home in Montrose on Tuesday, at which the owner is under investigation for a side-business donating bodies for education and. E.W. They were arrested in 2020 and charged with six counts of mail fraud and three counts of illegal transportation of hazardous materials. . Records from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies showthis was not the first time Kent has been in the crosshairs of state regulators. Now its possible its not my baby in the urn, Reh said. 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. 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. You are looking at how to make money.. The recent parade of early deaths has hit close to home. A former Colorado funeral home operator has pleaded guilty to stealing and then selling hundreds of human bodies or body parts to people who were buying the remains for scientific, medical or . This comes after a dozen . Six people were killed, including federal District Court Chief Judge John Roll; Gabe Zimmerman, one of Giffords's staffers; and a 9-year-old girl . Pettyjohn now lives with the memory of what happened to the body of her 26-year-old son, Brian. An agent with the FBI has interviewed at least four former employees who worked for funeral director and body broker Megan Hess, seeking information about how she operates her businesses, the former workers told Reuters. The states Department of Regulatory Agencies said it has nine open complaints about Sunset Mesa higher than average for funeral homes in the state, said spokesman Lee Rasizer. The Lake County Sheriffs Office confirmed an active criminal investigation is underway. There is even more money to be made in dissecting those bodies and selling the parts. Megan Hess, the owner of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, and her parents are now under investigation by the FBI. She was sold, embalmed and shipped out within just a few hours of her death, said Holloman. Both Hess and Koch originally had pleaded not guilty to the charges. Further, the van was holding two other bodies that needed to be removed.. And much like E.W. Suppliers of transplant tissue must obtain federal recognition and operate as charities. The Lake County Sheriffs Office confirmed an active criminal investigation is underway. The conflict of interest of having a side business in body parts just leads to problems. 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. 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. Authorities also uncovered multiple refrigerated bodies which were wrapped in sheets or blankets but did not have any tags or paperwork identifying them.

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