A Colorado funeral home is being accused by the federal government of stealing and then selling people’s body parts.
Sunset Mesa Funeral Home was raided by the FBI – and owners Megan Hess, 43, and her mother Shirley Koch, 66, were arrested.
According to the indictment, between 2010 and 2018, the mother and daughter offered cremation services to the recently deceased. But instead of cremating the bodies, prosecutors say that the funeral home harvested and illegally sold body parts, or whole bodies, without the permission of the families.
And the indictment claims that the mother-daughter body stealers reportedly made hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Under the indictment Megan and Shirley, in one case, sold a person’s body and gave his loved ones concrete, federal authorities said.
Megan and Shirley appeared before a federal magistrate judge in Grand Junction, Colorado on Tuesday.
Selling organs such as hearts, kidneys, and tendons for transplant is illegal. But no federal law governs the sale of cadavers or body parts for use in research or education.