A US lady who sold deceased people’s body parts received a 20-year prison term.
On Tuesday, January 3, Megan Hess, 46, a former owner of a Colorado funeral home, received the hefty term for scamming the surviving family members.
Hess accomplished this by charging families up to $1,000 for non-existent cremations. She would later dissect 560 corpses before illegally selling the body parts.
She managed a body parts company called Donor Services and a funeral home called Sunset Mesa all under one roof in Montrose, Colorado.
The woman admitted to fraud back in July, and the maximum sentence authorised by law was 20 years in prison.
Shirly Koch, Mesa’s mother, who is 69 years old, admitted to participating in the unlawful activity and was given a 15-year prison term.
Court documents reveal that Koch’s primary responsibility was to dismember the bodies while Mesa was selling the body parts.
Tim Neff, the prosecutor, claimed in court that Hess and Koch occasionally utilised their funeral parlour to steal people and body parts by utilising fake and falsified donor paperwork.
“The behaviour of Hess and Koch caused the families and next of kin great emotional suffering.”
In the brief, prosecutors also claimed that Hess’ plan was one of the most significant cases involving body parts in modern US history.
Judge Christine M. Arguello did not think twice about imprisoning Hess and Koch for their crimes as a result.
The most emotionally taxing case she had ever handled on the bench, she declared.
The fact that defendant Hess won’t accept accountability for her actions worries the court,
On Tuesday, Hess declined to address the judge; her attorney said that Hess had been unduly demonised as a “witch,” “monster,” and “ghoul.”
Her mum, Koch, did speak to the judge saying that she was sorry and took full responsibility for her actions.
A total of 26 victims in court described the horror they had suffered following what had happened to their family members.
Tina Shannon, who had her mum dismembered without permission, told the court: “I’ve worn many masks to cover the pain. I’ll never be OK.”
Meanwhile, another victim, Nancy Overhoff, said: “When Megan stole my mom’s heart, she broke mine.”
The case comes to a closer following a brutal five years of investigation, after the FBI raided the Hess’ businesses in 2018.
