Megan Hess and her mother, Shirley Koch, chopped up 560 bodies at her father’s Colorado funeral home and sold the parts to medical schools that didn’t know the bodies and parts were stolen and belonged to someone’s loved one.
Hess, 46, was sentenced to 20 years, and Koch, 69, got 15 years, according to court records. Hess, who ran the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, Colorado, charged families up to $1,000 for cremations that never happened and, in other cases, promised them free services in exchange for body part donations.
She then sold body parts such as arms, legs, and heads without permission and used fake donor documents through Donor Services, her side business on the same site. Several family members whose loved ones were cremated by Hess later discovered that the ashes they got were not clean, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Attorney District of Colorado office.
“These two women preyed on vulnerable victims who turned to them in a time of grief and sadness,” said Leonard Carollo, FBI acting special agent in Denver, in court documents. “But instead of offering guidance, these greedy women betrayed the trust of hundreds of victims and mutilated their loved ones.”
Carollo said the women disrespected the grieving victims’ wishes and degraded their family members’ bodies to sell them for money without their knowledge or consent. Even after being exposed, these two criminals persisted in their crimes for years without expressing regret, according to Carollo.
“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,” he said.
“I take full responsibility for my actions,” Koch said in July, Reuters reported.
Hess, 45, admitted to fraud on July 5, but sentencing could not be agreed upon.
Court documents reveal that her daughter’s body broker business, Donor Services, removed the heads, spines, arms, and legs before selling them, primarily for surgical training and other educational uses, Reuters reported.
The government found out that the mother and daughter sold these bodies without permission and, in some cases, used fake documents to sell bodies with diseases like HIV and hepatitis, which is also against the law. During the hearing on Tuesday, FBI agent John Busch said that Hess copied the logos and taglines of a Denver-based organ and tissue company called Donor Alliance Inc. to trick families into thinking they could donate organs to help the blind see or the paralyzed walk with a new spine, the Denver Post reported.
Former employees spoke about how bodies were dissected without the families’ knowledge or consent in interviews. The FBI conducted a business raid shortly after the Reuters articles, and state regulators ordered the funeral home and crematory to close.
It was an emotional setting in Tuesday’s sentencing hearing, the Denver Post reported.
At one point on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Christine M. Arguello talked about her grief after losing her husband of 45 years. She also said that the seriousness of both defendants’ crimes put her in rarefied air.
“This case falls outside the heartland of any other cases in the United States,” the judge said. Arguello called the trial the most emotionally draining she’s ever handled.