A former Colorado funeral home owner pleaded guilty Tuesday to defrauding families by selling body parts of the deceased without their relatives’ consent. Megan Hess ran the Sunset Mesa funeral home and a human body parts business called Donor Services out of the same building. He admitted in federal court Tuesday that he defrauded at least a dozen families who wanted their loved ones cremated. Court records show her body dealer company collected heads, spines, legs and arms and then sold them – mostly for surgical and educational purposes. Megan Hess pleaded guilty to defrauding at least a dozen families. (Photos by Reuters) Hess, who has previously pleaded not guilty, is scheduled to be sentenced in January. Prosecutors are seeking 12 to 15 years in prison. Hess has been in custody since her 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. on the remains of their relatives. FBI ADDS ‘CRYPTOQUEEN’ TO TEN MOST WANTED LIST Hess and Koch founded a nonprofit called the Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation in 2009. The organization was a “body broker service” that operated out of the funeral home and did business selling body parts to third parties, authorities said. The indictment said 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 bodies, prosecutors said. A client was given a concrete mix as an alternative for his family member’s ashes. A former employee accused Hess of making $40,000 by extracting and selling the gold teeth of some dead people, court documents revealed. JUDGE SAYS FORMER UBER SECURITY CHIEF SHOULD FACE FRAUD CHARGES FOR ALLEGED ROLE IN HACKING COVER-UP Megan Hess and her mother, Shirley Koch, operated Sunset Mesa Funeral Home. (Photos by Reuters) The two women also sent corpses and body parts that either tested positive or belonged to people who died of infectious diseases, including hepatitis B and C, and HIV. This was despite certifying to buyers that the carcasses contained no disease, authorities said. GET THE FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE A change hearing for Koch is scheduled for July 12. Koch has also previously pleaded not guilty. Reuters contributed to this report.
