Two funeral homes, one in Colorado and one in Utah, have been charged with unlawful acts according to articles about the funeral homes that were published recently.

Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors of Montrose, Colorado has been issued a cease and desist order from the State of Colorado for “multiple and willful violations of the Mortuary Science Code” according to an article in the Montrose Press that you can read here.  The funeral home also has operated as a body parts broker, according to the article, and has allegedly violated several state laws, including cremating and embalming bodies without permission, giving families the wrong cremains, substituting concrete for cremains, and not maintaining records for final disposition of  bodies it handled.  Former employees said they were interviewed by the FBI and accused the funeral home’s owner of harvesting body parts and gold teeth and profiting from the sale of such.

The FBI has confirmed it is involved in an investigation of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home and that it executed a search warrant signed by a federal judge earlier this month.

The second case we learned about has to do with the owner of Carver Mortuary in South Salt Lake, Utah.  The Carver Mortuary and its owner, Tanner Jay Carver, along with other individuals has been charged in 3rd District Court with seven counts of unlawful and unprofessional conduct and 10 counts of unlawful preparing of a dead body for disposition without a license according to an article in the Deseret News that you can read here.

In the complaint, it is alleged that over 300 embalming procedures and cremations were done by unlicensed personnel.  The article also states that Carver Mortuary is accused of selling scrap gold, including dental gold.

In November 2017 the Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing announced an agreement with Carver Mortuary in which the mortuary neither admitted nor denied the allegations against it, but acknowledged the division had evidence to support its findings.  At that time Carver Funeral Home was placed on probation for five years and agreed to pay a fine.According to the article, the charges filed on Wednesday, February 14, are new and are criminal charges.

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