A former funeral home owner has pleaded guilty to selling body parts of humans that they were paid to cremate.
Megan Hess, former owner of Sunset Mesa funeral home, has admitted to selling body parts — “mostly” for surgical and educational purposes.
Hess and her mother, Shirley Koch, had also launched a side business called Donor Services — a “body-broker service” that specialized in selling human remains.
In a court appearance on July 5, Hess admitted to selling the remains of at least a dozen people without their families consent, after they paid her for cremation services.
According to a report from Fox News, “court records show her body dealer firm harvested heads, spines, legs and arms, and then sold them – mostly for surgical and educational purposes.”
“The indictment said that, from 2010 through 2018, Hess and Koch charged customers at least $1,000 for cremations, many of which never happened. They also offered free cremations in exchange for a body donation,” the report states. “The families received ashes from bins mixed with the remains of various cadavers, prosecutors said. One customer was given a concrete mix as an alternative to their family member’s ashes.”
A former employee also accused Hess of selling gold teeth of some of the deceased for $40,000.
In addition to all of that, Hess reportedly sold body parts from people who died of Hepatitis B and C, and HIV to buyers after claiming that they were healthy and disease-free.
In 2014, Hess wrote to a perspective buyer, “Meeting with hospice on the 4th … opening the floodgates of donors. They have four or five deaths a day. Get ready!!! … How about a deal on full embalmed spines … $950?”
Hess is currently out on bond and is not scheduled to be sentenced until January. Her attorneys have requested two years in prison, while prosecutors have requested 12-15.
The mother is scheduled to appear in court for a change of plea hearing on July 12. She had previously pleaded not guilty.
AND,.,, You Have to ASK the Legal Question, WHAT is going to Happen to the Individuals who wanted to Broker a Deal at the Hospice Agency with these Despicable Funeral Home Directors?
What About the Hospice Agency Director or whoever else was responsible for setting up the deal?
Shouldn’t there also be a Grand Jury Convened and those people be Arrested and Convicted as well? They are Just as Corrupt as these two women are… The Should be Sentenced to the Full Extent of the Law…
It says in the bible that the love of money is the root of all evil. This is a good example. Sad for the families.
Both these POS’s excuse for human beings should rot in prison until the day they can return the body parts to the family members who believed they got back the remains of their loved ones. Every cent they own should be taken from them to compensate the families who’s loved ones they desecrated, for their mental anguish. They should be left penniless, homeless, destitute, with nothing to leave to their own family members but their own dead bodies when they finish their life in prison without the possibility of parole, sentences. As a person who watched my own family members go into the chambers so I knew they went in whole I know for a fact the mental anguish the survivors are suffering.
Throw the book at them and then, throw away the key. What disgusting people these ones are.