An undertaker in the United States is in legal trouble for engaging in the illicit trade of deceased bodies for money and deceiving mourning families by presenting them with fake ashes that she falsely claimed to be their relatives.
Accused individual, Megan Hess, allegedly provided urns containing counterfeit ashes to families in an attempt to conceal her fraudulent activities.
Reports indicate that she even substituted the remains of one person with concrete mix.
The 45-year-old had previously denied the accusations leveled against her but eventually pleaded guilty in court earlier this week, revealing the staggering truth behind her actions.
An investigation conducted by the FBI discovered that Hess falsified a multitude of body-donor consent forms at her Sunset Mesa funeral home in Montrose. She then proceeded to sell various body parts, such as heads, arms, spines, and legs, for medical research purposes. Additionally, she extracted and sold the gold teeth of some of the deceased individuals.
Alongside her mother, Shirley Koch, Hess stands accused of carrying out body harvesting activities from 2010 to 2018. Furthermore, it is believed that she utilized the substantial profits from these transactions to finance a trip to Walt Disney World.
By charging $1,000 (£8,400) per cremation, she also exploited financially disadvantaged families by initially offering her services for free, only to subsequently discard the bodies for her own personal gain.
The mother-daughter duo is also suspected of shipping the bodies of individuals who had either tested positive for, or succumbed to, conditions such as Hepatitis B and C, and HIV. Despite the medical history of the deceased, they misled buyers by falsely asserting that the remains were free from any diseases.
Prior to her recent admission of guilt, Hess was scheduled to face trial in the upcoming weeks. Meanwhile, Koch, who had previously entered a plea of not guilty, is slated to appear at a change-of-plea hearing on July 12.
Hess now faces the potential prospect of a 15-year prison term as part of her punishment.