"Morbid and driven by greed": Funeral home owner who illegally sold body parts gets 20 years
Editor’s note: Some of the details in this story could be disturbing to some readers.
It started with a feature story on body brokers that triggered an FBI investigation that would last years. Now, families of victims can hopefully find closure and a sense of justice after a funeral home owner accused of selling bodies and body parts without authorization received the maximum federal prison sentence.
On January 3, Megan Hess, 46, received a 20-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to one count of mail fraud and aiding and abetting. According to a release from the US Department of Justice (DOJ), Hess stole the bodies and body parts of hundreds of victims and then “sold those remains to victims purchasing the remains for body broker services.”
“The defendants’ conduct was horrific and morbid and driven by greed,” said US Attorney Cole Finegan. “We hope these prison sentences will bring the victim’s family members some amount of peace as they move forward in the grieving process.”
Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, Colorado (Google Maps)
Hess managed Sunset Mesa, a Montrose, Colorado, funeral home in the same building as Donor Services, a “body parts entity.” Reuters reports that Hess defrauded relatives of the dead “by dissecting 560 corpses and selling body parts without permission.”
Shirley Koch, 69, also pled guilty to one count of mail fraud and aiding and abetting, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
According to the DOJ, Koch and Hess never obtained authorization from families. And in the rare instances that families agreed to donation, Hess and Koch “sold the remains of those decedents beyond what was authorized by the family, which was often limited to small tissue samples, tumours, or portions of skin.”
Families would also receive remains of what they thought were their loved ones “when, frequently, that was not the case.” Some family members received human remains “with lots of metal junk.”
Megan Hess (Sunset Mesa Crimes/Facebook)
Despite assuring buyers that the bodies were free from disease, some bodies and parts tested positive for infectious diseases such as Hepatitis B and C, and HIV. Hess and Koch would also send body parts by mail or commercial flights, a violation of Department of Transportation regulations.
FBI Denver Acting Special Agent in Charge Leonard Carollo said that the two women preyed on vulnerable victims “who turned to them in a time of grief and sadness.”
“But instead of offering guidance, these greedy women betrayed the trust of hundreds of victims and mutilated their loved ones,” said Carollo. “Without knowledge or consent, the women disrespected the wishes of the grieving victims and degraded the bodies of their family members to sell them for profit.”
He added, “These two criminals continued in their atrocities for years, showing no remorse or contrition even after they were exposed. Nothing can guarantee solace for the victims or repair the damage done, but perhaps this sentence can mark the end of a horrible chapter in their lives.”
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