Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Mother-daughter villains BUSTED SELLING BODY PARTS OUT OF LOCAL FUNERAL HOME

Episode Date: April 20, 2020

Mother and daughter funeral home operators have been charged with using the business to sell human remains without the consent of families. Police say Megan Hess, 43, and Shirley Koch, 66, owned Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, Colorado. The indictment states that human remains were harvested and sold for scientific, medical or educational purposes, without permission from families. Some have reported receiving crushed concrete instead of their loved one's ashes.With Nancy Grace today to talk about this and other funeral home crimes: Wendy Wiener - Attorney specializing in Funeral Home Law Cloyd Steiger - 36 years Seattle Police Department, 22 years Homicide detective, Author of "Seattle's Forgotten Serial Killer-Gary Gene Grant" www.cloydsteiger.com  Karen Smith - Los Angeles, Ca Forensics Expert, Host of "Shattered Souls" podcast. Dr. Kendall Crowns - Deputy Medical Examiner Travis County, Texas (Austin) Caryn Stark - NYC Psychologist  Nicole Partin - Licensed Funeral Director, CrimeOnline Investigative Reporter Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Hi guys, Nancy Grace here. At a time when we are all pulling together to fight coronavirus, COVID-19, I have something for you. An all-free e-chapter on coronavirus crimes and how to fight them. Don't be a coronavirus crime victim. From door-to-door sales of fake cures and tests, vaccines. That's not real. To robocalls that are trying to scam you. To fake ads.

To phishing you online. To fake cures that are being sold on the internet and on infomercials right now. You've got to arm yourself against these crimes. Please download our free e-chapter, Coronavirus Crimes, Don't Be a Victim. Go to crimeonline.com. You'll see it there. Hit the link and download it for free. Arm yourself against criminals and scam artists, cons that will not only take advantage of you, but take advantage of you, your parents, your grandparents, and people you love at a time when we are all fighting the virus. I hope you go to CrimeOnline.com and download this. It's been highly researched and presented for you for free.

Goodbye, friend. Keep the faith. When most people think of their mom, they think of all the love and care their mom gave them while they were growing up. We think about Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, Christmas, special things we can do with our moms, all those wonderful homemade meals, all the love. You don't usually put mother and daughter in the same sentences. Selling body parts. That's right. I'm Nancy Grace.

This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. How do the words mother-daughter duo fit in the same sentence with selling body parts? Let that soak in just for a moment. Why would the words mother-daughter duo end up in the same sentence as selling body parts? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for joining us here on Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. A mother-daughter duo connected to selling body parts? How does that work? Well, take a listen to our

friends at KMGH Denver 7, Jennifer Kowalewski. State regulators tell me they're investigating 11 complaints against the funeral home. In this Reuters special report, found the FBI is investigating a side business owner Megan Hess is running out of the same building selling human body parts. We called Hess. Hi, Megan. My name is Jennifer Kowalewski, and I'm a reporter with Channel 7. And when I asked her about selling human body parts, all she would say is, we don't sell. We recover. There's a difference. There's no selling.

Before hanging up. Ex-employee Carrie Escher also told Reuters about gold teeth taken from corpses. She says the family sold to pay for a Disney vacation. Now to be clear, in Colorado, in most states, it's perfectly legal for funeral homes to sell items taken from cadavers, including gold teeth. Okay, I didn't know that, and I've been prosecuting felonies for I don't even know how long anymore.

It's okay to recover? With me, an all-star panel to break it down and put it back together again with the overarching question when you send your loved one's family body to a funeral home, what happens? And how did a mother and daughter duo get into a side business aside from their family-owned funeral home. What happened? I mean, I just went through the death of my dad and we went to a local funeral home in Macon and they were wonderful and I never thought this type of thing would happen at a reputable funeral home I the thought that that would happen to your loved one's body Wendy Wiener is joining us, attorney specializing in funeral home law.

This is her expertise. She knows it like the back of her hand. Also with me, 36-year Seattle PD and Homicide Division, author of Seattle's Forgotten Serial Killer, Gary Jean Grant, Cloyd Steiger, forensics expert and host of Shattered Souls podcast. Joining me out of California, Karen Smith, the deputy medical examiner for the Travis County ME's office.

That's in Austin, Texas. Dr. Kendall Crowns, renowned New York psychologist. Karen Stark at karenstark.com. But straight out to crimeonline.com investigative reporter, Nicole Parton, who I would like to point out is a licensed funeral director. Nicole Parton, before we get on with what it entails being a funeral home director, what happened? What happened with Mesa Sunset Funeral Home out in Colorado? Nancy, a horrific story. I can't imagine what these families are feeling

knowing that their loved ones' bodies were cut in pieces and then sold. And the kicker is the family. Okay, wait a minute. I didn't even know that part i knew but i i guess you have to cut the body in pieces to harvest that's certainly putting perfume on the pig the body parts okay mother daughter duo in colorado illegally sells body parts or entire bodies through a funeral home without consent of the families is that it in a nutshell that's it that's correct some sometimes they were selling the entire body the whole corpse but in many cases

they were dissecting the body cutting up the body and selling individual parts okay so what can you tell me about the mother daughter duo was this their funeral home? What do we know about them? Yeah, it was actually their funeral home. Megan Hess, 43 years old, family-owned and operated business, worked closely with her parents there. And somehow this mother-daughter operation started the side job of selling these bodies. Now, you have to understand, they're community there, well loved, well known, a local funeral home. And no one knew what was going on behind the scenes until all of this began to come out. I've got to go to Karen Stark, New York psychologist. Karen, at a time when

you're dealing with a horrible blow. Like my dad, we did everything together. We exercised together. He taught me how to dance, how to drive. He was quite the dancer, by the way, Karen Stark. He was the life of the party. He met my dad many, many times. And the thought that this could happen to his body at the funeral home. I mean, the person, the families are already dealing with so much, with the loss. And then to imagine this is happening in the back rooms. What does that do to a person? And why are you so vulnerable at the time your loved one has passed away? Well, I mean, people are trying to cope with loss and not having, as you know, Nancy, not

having that person in your life. And it's very important to be able to go through some kind of ritual after people died so that you hold them near. For so many people, they want to see the body or they want to remain. It's a symbol of this person lived and I love them. I cared about them and they go on in my memory. And when they are faced with something like this, it's devastating, just devastating to imagine that they thought they were with their loved ones, even though the people had died.

And then to discover that someone has done something, taken the bodies, they've been duped at a time when they are most vulnerable. It's horrific. You know, I'm just trying to figure out how this whole thing came to light. Straight back to Nicole Parton, investigative reporter on this special case, a mother and daughter duo allegedly selling body parts secretly of clients that came to their funeral home, their well-established family-owned funeral home in Colorado. To Nicole Parton, how did authorities find out this was happening? I mean, certainly the victims weren't speaking. No, they weren't. But the family members were beginning to be suspicious when they were given the created remains of their loved ones or what they thought were the cremated remains of their loved ones.

I don't like the way you just said that, Nicole Parton, or what they thought. It's just like when you hear in a movie, you know something, duh, duh, you know something bad's going to happen. What do you mean by what they thought were the cremated remains? Well, we have stories of family members opening the urn, opening the container, looking into the ashes, and beginning to question what they were given as cremated remains. Beginning to question, is this really the ashes of my loved one? So they reported this. Why would you question that? I mean, what the ashes of my loved one? So they reported this. Why would you question that?

I mean, what are ashes supposed to look like? Well, that can vary, of course. But I think some of them were able to look in and see obvious signs. One family complained they looked in the urn and they saw sand in the urn. And they knew, surely, the cremated remains of my loved one, the ashes, wouldn't look like sand. They began to complain to the local authorities. Detectives ran some analysis of those ashes, and sure enough, it came back to be all kinds of things other than cremated remains. Okay, when you think of that special mother-daughter relationship, like the one I have with my mom who now lives with me,

or the one I hope to have for life with my daughter Lucy, you don't really think about selling body parts as part of the equation. crime stories with nancy grace we are taking a look at a mother-daughter duo out of colorado um allegedly selling body parts secretly sometimes whole bodies take a listen to our friends at kmgh denver 7 jenn Kovalevski. Colorado doesn't regulate body part brokers and we're the only state that doesn't license funeral directors, which means no background checks. What this funeral home is accused of doing is eye-opening and illegal or not raises serious ethical questions. He entrusted me to take care of his final wishes. Grieving while also trying to plan a funeral is a trying task for any family.

Something just wasn't right from the beginning. But what Ron Mabry says he experienced at Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose only added to the pain. I thought we were just doing like an organ donation type thing. But apparently that's not the case. In his final days, Mabry says his friend Rex Dunlap made a dying request to have his glass eye placed with his ashes. I spent weeks trying to recover his eye. They couldn't track down the researcher who supposedly bought his head. Mabry says he never got the eye and couldn't track down the researcher who supposedly bought his head. Mabry says he never got the eye and couldn't complete his friend's final wish. Okay, the word just jumped out at me.

Joining me is a specialist, and yes, there are legal specialists in this area. That's what they do day in, day out. Just like when I went to law school, I knew I wanted to be a felony prosecutor. Put the bad guys in jail jail and you develop an expertise. You take constitutional law, criminal law, criminal procedure, RICO, organized crime, every class possible and what you want your expertise to be. Wendy Wiener is joining us, attorney specializing in funeral home law. And I know you're not specifically talking about the Sunset Macy case, but here's my general question, Wendy. And you are a renowned expert in this field. How can a state like Colorado not be licensed like other states?

I thought it was uniform across the country. Oh, Nancy, first, thanks for having me. The regulation of the death care industry is on a state-by-state basis, just like the regulation of the insurance industry. In fact, a lot of the laws and rules that govern the death care industry grew out of the various insurance codes of the various states. So it is on a state-by-state basis. Colorado's regulatory scheme is unusual.

And the market there does, for the most part, govern itself, if you will, in as much as funeral homes that don't do a good job for their customers eventually are out of business. Colorado does regulate some aspects of the death care industry, but this particular aspect was not one of them. They govern themselves. I mean, you could say that about pirates or dope dealers. Who's left to govern themselves? I mean, I know theoretically in America we govern ourselves, we elect our leaders. But we are subject to rules and regulations. I'm having a hard time getting my mind around what you just said. Wendy Wiener is joining me, who is a renowned expert in funeral home legislation, law, and regulation.

When you say that there are regulations in place what type of regulations are put on funeral homes because i can tell you something it would be a war between the gods if anybody touched so much as a lot of hair on my father's head at the funeral home oh no that is not going to happen on my watch. So what kind of regulations are in place? Well, generally speaking, and I think important to this case, the laws of most states require specific authorizations for funeral homes to take specific actions with regard to a decedent's remains. So for instance, in Florida, where I live, and where I primarily practice,

the laws specifically require authorization given by the person legally authorized to do so by law for things such as embalming, preparation, removal of the remains. And in a case such as this, there are authorizations that are required when a family may want to participate in one of the body donation programs that are widely available in the United States right now. You mean like organ donors? Now, I thought that happened at the hospital, though, not at the funeral home. You're exactly right. This is not an organ donation situation per se.

At the funeral establishment or associated with the funeral establishment there are often programs in place for the harvesting of certain body parts eyes skin lots of things that can be beneficial for both scientific study okay I've got a question right there Nancy Wiener with a, specialist in funeral home law. Right there, Dr. Kendall Crowns. And remind me to circle back, Nancy. I want to find out the difference between a funeral home and a mortuary. Is there one? Dr. Kendall Crowns, I thought when you did organ donation,

you had to do that while... Don't you have to do that when the person is still alive? So some organ donation, you you have to do that when the person is still alive so some organ donation you do have to do it while the individual is still alive or the tissue is viable anymore you can't transplant it but there is uh parts of donation that can be done after the body is dead but it has to be done with a certain time period that is a bone and some soft tissues, including heart valves, that they'll recover after the person is deceased, as well as corneas from the eyes. Wendy Wiener with me, lawyer specializing in funeral home law.

So, Wendy, what's the difference in a funeral home and a mortuary? There's really not one. It's nomenclature. Long-held question in my mind. Okay, let's get back to this mother-daughter duo. You know, to Cloyd Steiger, 36 years Seattle PD, 22 years Homicide Now author. Cloyd Steiger, have you ever dealt with people trafficking in body parts or bodies? You know, I really never have because my body experience is limited to murder victims who, you know, go under autopsy.

So, you know, I've never heard anything really like this. It's kind of shocking. I've had dismembered bodies. I've had bodies that were, let me just say, euphemistically tampered with post-mortem. Dr. Kendall Crowns, Deputy Medical Examiner, Travis County, Texas. Have you ever dealt with the sale of body parts? So, yeah, yes, I have. When I used to work in Chicago, they would occasionally have packages that were being trafficked

through O'Hare Airport that would be seized, and then they would be full of like human skulls and they'd bring them into the office for us to identify them as human remains and what they were being. What would people be doing with human skulls? From what I understood when I asked about your very

same question is they were being sold to dental schools so they could work on the teeth. Okay, you know, that's one aspect of criminal law I hadn't thought about yet, but I guess there's always something to be explored. To Nicole Parton, joining us, crime online investigative reporter in this specific case. She is a licensed funeral director. From what I understand, Nicole Parton, this doesn't sound like your traditional organ donor situation.

What allegedly was happening with this mother-daughter duo? And Karen Stark, I'm going to circle back to you about the mother-daughter dynamic and illegally selling body parts together. But Nicole Parton, what exactly were they doing? This was not on the up and up. Absolutely not. This was not organ donation. This was not in consent of the family members. So family members were not signing consent forms saying that they authorized the funeral home to donate parts of their loved one. But rather, the family was going in, purchasing, in most cases, cremation services for their loved one. And rather the family was going in, purchasing, in most cases, cremation services

for their loved one. And rather than this mother-daughter performing as they should have been, the cremation, they were selling the body parts, in some cases, $1,000 for upper legs, $500 for head, $250 for knees. So they were never embalming or never cremating loved ones. They were giving the family back an urn full of something other than their loved one's ashes and selling their body. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A Colorado funeral home is causing more suffering for grieving families.

There's very unsettling questions for any survivor that's grieving the loss of a loved one. Terry Thorsby's parents died within six months of each other. SURVIVOR THAT'S GRIEVING THE LOSS OF A LOVED ONE. TERRY THORSBY'S PARENTS DIED WITHIN SIX MONTHS OF EACH OTHER. HER LAWYER, CHRIS COWEN, SAYS SHE ARRANGED FOR THEM TO BE CREMATED BY SUNSET MESA FUNERAL HOME AND CREMATORIUM IN MONTROS, ABOUT A HUNDRED MILES NORTH OF DURANGO. THEY WERE EXPECTING TO GET THE REMAINS BACK. ACCORDING TO A LAWSUIT FILED LAST WEEK, THORSBY LEARNED FROM THE FBI THAT HER MOTHER WASN'T RESTING IN PEACE. last week, Thorsby learned from the FBI that her mother wasn't resting in peace. Her mother's pelvis, both arms from the shoulder down, her mother's right knee to her foot, and the mother's left knee had been harvested before the cremation and sold to a research facility or some sort of medical facility, and that her head had been severed. Okay, Wendy Wiener joining me, attorney specializing in funeral home law.

What type of research institute would be part of cells like this? Now, I know you are not going to talk about Sunset Mesa. I understand that. But what about research and development institutes aren't they under a duty to figure out where they're getting body parts i mean i'm going to go to the grocery store and i'm going to buy x y and z i know where it's coming from i'm not going to go out on the street and try to find those items falling off the back of a truck. I have a duty to provide to my children wholesome, sanitized food that's good for them. I mean, my analogy is

don't research institutes have a duty to figure out where body parts are coming from? Well, I think your question really gets to the heart of this matter, and that is what authorization has been given by the family for the use of the decedent's remains? I would suspect that in a case such as this, where the families were not aware and where it appears that some type of fraud was being perpetrated against the families involved. Likewise, there could have been a type of fraud being perpetrated against the end recipient of the parts of the decedent's remains. And so it's entirely possible that the medical institutes or the research facilities that ultimately received these portions of human remains were not aware that families failed to receive

or failed to give the appropriate authorization. I want to circle back to you, Nicole Parton, joining us, licensed funeral director, investigating this case for us at CrimeOnline.com. I also understand that these two, mother and daughter, Hess and Koch, allegedly sent bodies and body parts that had actually tested positive for infectious diseases or people who died from illnesses such as HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, although they certify to the, I'll just go with research institutes or whoever's buying the body parts illegally, certifying to them that the bodies and body parts did not have any such illnesses. So what became of those body parts and could they have infected others is another big question.

What do we know about that, Nicole Parton, if anything? We know some about that. But yeah, in fact, they were sending out these bodies or body parts. And again, without full disclosure, without the truth concerning the diseases or the infections that were inside the body. So could they have potentially been a harm? Absolutely. And again, this goes back to because they didn't disclose, they weren't honest, not only with the families, but with those receiving the body. We know the mother-daughter duo ignored, according to law enforcement, wishes of mourning relatives on at least 12 occasions by shipping bodies or body parts to a third party.

Now, you heard this one woman talking about her mother's head being severed. Another facet of this is the mother-daughter dynamic. Koch and Hess, mother and daughter, each fueling the other's desire to illegally sell body parts. You know, I was just thinking about this, Karen Stark, as I was taking a sip of this. You know, I'm a tea drinker, but my daughter insisted. She makes a special concoction. She whips cold water with instant coffee, adds stevia and milk and ice. I

don't know what she does, but she makes a drink for me. And what I see usually at night, right before I fall asleep, is I see John David and Lucy's face asleep on the pillow. How does a mother-daughter relationship get so twisted that together they're like two witches around the fire, gnashing their teeth and switching their tails, selling illegal body parts against the wishes of family? How does that dynamic get so twisted, Karen? Well, you just discussed it, Nancy, when you talked about the bond between you and Lucy. So the two of you are so tight that she loves to be able to make this concoction for you. And mothers and daughters many times have that kind of really unusual strong bond. So if the mother is somebody who is not a good person, who's criminal mentality, there's a good chance that the daughter will go along with it because

you look up to your mother. Mothers, we see them as wise and they know it all, they help us. And it doesn't surprise me at all that that strong bond could be converted into something that would be evil. Here's the reality. You know, Cloyd Steiger, 36 years Seattle PD and now author, we know of 12 firm allegations made by law enforcement. There's no telling how many other times this happened, how long they had been doing this before they were finally caught. You've got one guy looking for a glass eye. You've got somebody else. They're missing their gold teeth. The body is a severed head, a kneecap, and nobody knows exactly what happened. This may have been going on for years before it finally made its way to law enforcement,

Cloyd. Yeah, you know, that's my experience, Nancy, that we're just looking at the tip of the iceberg. And these are the ones that got caught on. There are probably hundreds, if not thousands of other cases where people were unsuspecting and never challenged it or they got away with it. It's just pathetic. And you know, another issue is to you, Nicole

Parton, a licensed funeral director. How many times do people actually look in and earn? I know you recall my cat, Coco, the stray that I took in, solid black. I loved him so much. Had him 18 years, and I was not even

a cat person. So he was cremated, and he is in a wooden urn. I've never really looked or sifted through the ashes. So what would you expect to find in an urn? What would ashes look like, Nicole? That can vary, and the amount of ashes can vary. And you're right. Most family members don't even look inside, which echoes what you were saying earlier. This has probably been going on for so long, and it's happened to many other families. But when families do look inside, you can expect to see different colors. Sometimes small particles of bone. You can expect sometimes if your loved one had maybe received pins or screws from a broken bone, you can see those

in the bottom of the urn. You can see those mixed in with the ashes. But certainly it would not look like sand as some of these witnesses are saying. It's a darker color. And you could definitely tell an ash as opposed to some of these things that they were placing inside the urn. I guarantee you that a lot of these people never even looked inside to see what was in the urn. We are talking about a mother-daughter duo, Koch and Hess, that allegedly took part in a wide-ranging scam to sell body parts out of their Sunset Mesa funeral home in Colorado. But they're not the only ones. Take a listen to CBS4 Miami reporter Joan Murray. When I saw her face, it looked like someone had threw acid on her or she was pushed into a fire and just left to burn.

Those were the gruesome last images Ebony Morgan says she has of her time. She's been living in the house for a long time. One of the damages Ebony Morgan says she has of her 11 year old daughter, she claims had a botched burial. She was a sweet girl. She used to always on the way home in the car. She's talked to her dad to her dad about how

his you know her day was helping take his work shoes off. Like we don't have that anymore. It. My kids. I'm standing in this doorway like they don't even go on that side of the house anymore. Ebony Morgan's daughter, Reasia Washington

died on vacation in Georgia from an asthma attack. Her parents said they paid Sean Johnson Funeral home of Riviera Beach to preserve the body, drive her back to Florida and arrange a proper service. Instead, they said the body was never embalmed or refrigerated. Their explanation was we were trying to save

the family money. Therefore, we brought the body back without having it embalmed in Georgia, to which the family had no knowledge of. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. In the last weeks, a family has sued a Riviera Beach funeral home claiming this little girl's body was left to decompose. Take a listen to a press conference where mom Ebony is speaking about this lawsuit. When we took pictures of my daughter, she asked us not to. I didn't understand why. I was scared. I was scared when I was standing there with Sean. I didn't know after seeing my daughter looking like that, no skin on her body. Her face is, I mean, I just can't.

Her head was the size of a basketball. Like she, my baby was, she was just so big and stinking. She was, it was, it was horrible. I could see it on Sean's face. She was scared presenting my daughter to me like that. She was scared and I was scared because she was scared. I didn't know at that point what she was capable of. I was just ready to go and call the police and get someone here to see what I had just saw because that was just unreal. Joining me, Nicole Parton, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Nicole Parton, what happened there in Riviera Beach, Florida?

And this has just occurred. Very sad situation, Nancy. I can't imagine the family's horrific pain when they viewed their daughter in this condition. So apparently the girl passed away in Georgia and then the Florida funeral home transported her body back to Florida. Not an uncommon thing, but in this case, uncommon in the fact that they didn't have her embalmed before the transportation. And then according to the allegations, once they arrived in Florida, still no preservation of the body took place. Still not embalmed, still not placed in a refrigerated climate-controlled facility.

And of course, unfortunately, the obvious took place. Their little girl began to decompose. Here is more of the mom in her heartbreak talking about her 11-year-old little girl at a press conference this is ebony morgan when i saw her face it looked like someone had threw acid on her or she was pushed into a fire and just left to burn um her face was unrecognizable. I didn't think that was my child. Sean tried to cover her.

As we continued to try to pull the sheets off of her, she just continued to pull them back over. And my daughter's hand was out. And I touched her hand and I asked Sean, I said, Sean, is this my daughter's hand or out. And I touched her hand, and I asked Sean. I said, Sean, is this my daughter's hand, or did something happen to it? Like, did her hand fall off, and you had to put a fake hand here? Because this hand, it looks see-through. Like, this hand is see-through.

It looks like a mannequin hand that you see in the nail salon. She goes, no. I told you, Reasia, she had a skin slip. She had a skin slip, Ebony. I told you that. I say, no, you didn't. It's just almost too much for me to take in. First, she loses her daughter at 11 years old with an asthma attack. Then her body is bungled like this. I mean, according to the mother, the little girl, Raisiss's body was not properly embalmed or refrigerated. For nearly two weeks, the body was at the funeral home.

Nicole Parton, CrimeOnline.com, a reporter investigating this case, what do we think exactly happened? Well, the allegations state, the obvious, unfortunately, that the body was transported without embalming. The funeral home has yet to really give an explanation. They have said something like they were trying to save the family money. My question to them would be, they should have placed her in refrigeration. She could have been preserved. There are measures that could have taken have taken place and I will be very curious to see the outcome of

I'm curious too. I'm curious as to why there's not a criminal investigation going on. Nicole Parton is there. You know at this point there is not. They are investigating, but please confirm that they've responded. They're trying to investigate,

see what's going on, but at this point no criminal charges have been made. Wow, a family now suing a Riviera Beach responded that they're trying to investigate to see what's going on but at this point no criminal charges have been made wow a family now suing a Riviera Beach funeral home claiming the little girl's body was left to decompose to Dr Kendall Crowns joining me deputy medical examiner Travis County Texas in Austin this is only compounded by a parent the grief of a parent losing a child at a young age, just 11 years old, a beautiful little girl. And now this, did you hear the way the mother described what the body looked like when she managed to get to see the body? What did that description tell you as to

what happened, Dr. Crowns? So all the descriptions that I'm hearing is it's moderate decomposition. So the body has been unrefrigerated or not put in a cold environment for a period of time, and the body is beginning to break down. The swelling that they're talking about of her head and her body is from bacteria creating gas, and that causes the body to bloat and swell up and then the mother referred to skin slippage the there's the epidermal and dermal layer of skin so the top part of the bottom part of the skin and they're attached by bonds and when these bonds begin to break down the skin actually epidermis or the surface of the skin slips off and kind of like a thin

layer of tissue and it almost looks like a glove oh man you know it's hard enough dealing with grief much less the loss of your child and then this but in this funeral home world, we're just telling you the tip of the iceberg. Take a listen to a four-year Uniontown funeral director who ultimately was sent to prison for fraud. This is Pittsburgh KDKA2 news reporter Ross Giudotti. Kismarski pleaded guilty to swindling almost a half a million dollars from many people over the age of 60. Today, of course, the sentence was read out, and many of the folks that he allegedly took advantage of are not happy about it. After Stephen E. Kaczmarski was sentenced to up to eight years behind bars, his victims' reactions to that sentencing ranged from shock to outrage.

A slap in the face. Why do you say that? Because the man's a thief. He stole our money. Probably should have been maybe more. The 52-year-old disgraced Uniontown funeral director pleaded guilty to bilking more than half a million dollars in prepaid funeral arrangements from roughly 140 individuals. When he took the stand today, speaking to the victims,

he said that he wasn't a bad man, just a bad businessman. Well, that is certainly putting perfume on the pig. What are prepaid funeral plans? In a nutshell, Wendy Wiener, what are those? Prepaid funeral plans, sometimes referred to as pre-need contracts, are contracts made with a funeral home by an individual or by a family, wherein the family comes in and makes all of the arrangements ahead of time. It's actually a wonderful thing to do. It takes the burden off of the family at the time that the decedent passes, but the arrangements are made and the funeral is paid for in advance. All of the states require

that the funds related to those contracts be addressed in one of just a handful of ways. Either those funds have to be put into a trust account and maintained there until the decedent has passed, or the funds must be pushed into an insurance policy. And then in a couple of states, there are some other alternatives, but primarily that's what it is and that's how it works. Taking advantage of families, parents, grieving at the time of a loss, bilking them out of thousands of dollars, and according to this guy who says he's just a bad businessman, nearly a million dollars.

We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.