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A former Colorado funeral home owner pleaded guilty Tuesday to defrauding families by selling the deceased’s body parts without the consent of their relatives.
Megan Hess ran Sunset Mesa Funeral Home and a human body parts business called Donor Services out of the same building. On Tuesday, she admitted in federal court that she defrauded at least a dozen families who wanted their loved ones cremated. Court records show her body-trading firm collects heads, spines, legs and arms and then sells them — mostly for surgical and educational purposes.
Megan Hess pleaded guilty to defrauding at least a dozen families. (Photos by Reuters)
Hess, who previously pleaded not guilty, is scheduled to be sentenced in January. Prosecutors are seeking 12 to 15 years in prison. Hess has been free since his arrest.
She and her mother, Shirley Koch, ran the funeral home and were indicted by a grand jury in March 2020 on charges that they used the funeral home to sell body parts, forge signatures and mislead families about what happened to their relatives’ remains. .
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Hess and Koch founded a nonprofit called the Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation in 2009. The organization was a “body broker service” operating out of the funeral home, doing business selling body parts to third parties, authorities said.
The indictment says that from 2010 to 2018, Hess and Koch charged customers at least $1,000 for cremations, many of which never took place. They also offered free cremations in exchange for body donation.
The families received ashes from bins mixed with the remains of various corpses, prosecutors said. One client was given a concrete mix as an alternative to the ashes of a family member.
A former employee accused Hess of making $40,000 by extracting and selling the gold teeth of some deceased individuals, court documents reveal.
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Megan Hess and her mother, Shirley Koch, operated Sunset Mesa Funeral Home. (Photos by Reuters)
The two women also sent bodies and body parts that either tested positive for or belonged to people who died from infectious diseases, including hepatitis B and C and HIV. This was done despite certifying to the buyers that the bodies contained no disease, authorities said.
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A change of plea hearing for Koch is scheduled for July 12. Koch has also pleaded not guilty.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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