Colorado lawmakers are expected to vote today on a bill that will make owning a mortuary or crematory and also owning a body broker business at the same time illegal.  You may have been following the happenings at Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors of Montrose, Colorado, this past winter that has prompted this action.

According to this article and video from NBC 11 in Colorado, the FBI raided the funeral home this winter and the funeral home business and its owner, Megan Hess are still under investigation.  It is alleged that Ms. Hess sold some of the parts of bodies entrusted to her for funeral and/or cremation services in a body broker business also owned by her and ran out of the funeral home.  It is alleged she did so without the permission of the families she was serving.  The funeral home has been shut down while the investigation continues.

In the article, attorney David TeSelle is quoted as saying, “They (the families) deserve an explanation, they deserve to know what actually happened with their loved one’s bodies, that’s the number one priority for almost everyone we talk to.”

Joelina Espinoza had the remains from the cremation of her father-in-law tested at a lab and the results, according to Espinoza indicate that “the sample is not consistent with being human.”

Funeral Director Daily take:  Funeral homes are entrusted every day to take care of the deceased in a professional and humane manner.  It is expected of us and one reason why certain funeral homes really earn the consumer trust.  If these allegations prove to be true, I don’t know of many other ways that human trust can be violated any worse.

Funeral homes and the death care industry really need to know, while these types of violations are isolated, they are really bad for us all as our integrity comes into question.  As an industry we have to come to grips that not everybody in the industry puts the consumer first.

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