A US Funeral Home Boss Just Got Prison Time For Stealing Bodies & Her Mom Helped Her Do It

A former Colorado funeral home operator and her mother were sentenced to prison on Tuesday, after the two women admitted to illegally selling more than 500 bodies without telling the families.

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Megan Hess, 46, operated the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, Colorado, where she was caught selling hundreds of bodies that she was supposed to cremate.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado says Hess previously pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and aiding and abetting. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Tuesday.

According to Reuters, the 20-year term was the maximum allowed under the law.

Hess' 69-year-old mother, Shirly Koch, also pleaded guilty to mail fraud and aiding and abetting. She was sentenced to 15 years.

The U.S. Attorney's Office says the mother and daughter would meet with families seeking cremation services. In some cases, their requests for body donations were approved by families, but documents show the duo went beyond what was discussed.

In other instances, the body donation requests were denied.

Documents show the mother and daughter team would also ship bodies and body parts that tested positive for infectious diseases after assuring buyers that the remains were "disease free."

Those shipments were made through the mail or on commercial air flights.

The judge involved in Tuesday's sentencing described how it felt presiding over the case.

"This is the most emotionally draining case I have ever experienced on the bench," U.S. District Judge Christine M. Arguello said during the sentencing hearing, as per the Reuters report.

Attorneys and FBI agents also released statements following the conclusion of the trial.

“The defendants’ conduct was horrific and morbid and driven by greed. They took advantage of numerous victims who were at their lowest point given the recent loss of a loved one. We hope these prison sentences will bring the victim’s family members some amount of peace as they move forward in the grieving process,” said U.S. attorney Cole Finegan.

“We sincerely hope this punishment deters like-minded fraudsters in the future.”

An FBI agent on the case said the two women “continued in their atrocities for years, showing no remorse or contrition even after they were exposed.”

According to the Washington Post, it is legal to sell human remains, but the body broker industry is not closely regulated in many states.

What Koch and Hess did was illegal because they had stolen hundreds of the bodies sold since they did not have consent from the families. It is also illegal to sell infected body parts.

Reuters says the federal case was triggered by a series the outlet did between 2016 to 2018 about the sale of body parts in the United States. Several weeks after a 2018 story was published by Reuters, the FBI raided Hess' business.

The judge ordered that Hess and Koch start their prison sentences immediately.

This article's cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.