GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Megan Hess and Shirley Koch slowly put out their arms, the soft clink of metal handcuffs audible in the federal courtroom as U.S. marshals took the mother and daughter into custody.
And with that sound, dozens of victims let out gasps — hugging, crying and laughing at the conclusion Tuesday of a real-life body-snatching case that the judge acknowledged had little precedent in American history.
“We came today to hear the handcuffs click,” said Erin Smith, who brought her mother’s body to Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors in Montrose after her death in 2011. Seven years later, the FBI informed her family that her mother wasn’t cremated but instead dismembered and sold for profit. “And we got that.”
U.S. District Judge Christine M. Arguello on Tuesday sentenced Hess, 46, to 20 years in prison — the maximum allowable — for her role in a nearly decade-long scheme to sell body parts without the consent of grieving Western Slope families. Her mother, Koch, 69, received a 15-year sentence.
The emotional, daylong hearing brought to a close a five-year legal odyssey that began when the FBI raided the funeral home in February 2018, following a Reuters investigation that found Sunset Mesa to be unlike any other business in the country. The gruesome details of the case — which authorities say included more than 500 victims — drew international attention and shined a light on the largely unregulated American body broker industry.
Arguello, who at one point Tuesday shared personal anecdotes of her own grief after losing her husband of 45 years, eschewed advisory guidelines for both defendants, saying the scope of this “heinous offense” put her in “uncharted waters.”
“This case falls outside the heartland of any other cases in the United States,” the judge said, calling it the most emotionally draining case she’s handled during her time on the bench.
The FBI, during an investigation dubbed “Operation Morbid Market,” ultimately tracked hundreds of bodies and body parts sold by Hess and Koch to places as far away as Saudi Arabia. Over the course of several years, dozens of Coloradans who used Sunset Mesa were horrified to learn from federal agents that the urns in their homes didn’t contain their loved ones’ ashes.
“While technically not a violent crime, this is a heinous crime, a dastardly crime,” said Tim Neff, an assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case.
'A silent scream of gratitude'
Dozens of those families detailed their unfathomable anguish Tuesday before the court. Nightmares. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Loss of trust. An unending cycle of grief and anger.
“When Megan stole my mom’s heart,” Nancy Overhoff said, “she broke mine.”
A federal grand jury in March 2020 indicted Hess and Koch, charging each with six counts of mail fraud and three counts of illegal transportation of hazardous materials.
Hess sat with slumped shoulders, looking at the ground through much of Tuesday’s proceedings. She wiped her eyes as she approached the podium. When Arguello asked if she had anything to say, Hess slowly shook her head.
Koch, before receiving her sentence, apologized to the grieving families, saying her only motivation was medical research.
“I acknowledge my guilt and take responsibility for my actions,” she said. “I’m very sorry for the harm I caused you and your families.”
The victims, however, universally pleaded with the judge to impose the maximum allowable sentence.
Danielle McCarthy lost her husband, David, on Father’s Day in 2017. Several months after the FBI’s raid at Sunset Mesa, an agent called to tell her David’s cremains were not in the box she had been given. He had been sold and shipped to Detroit — in pieces.
When the judge announced Hess’ sentence Tuesday, McCarthy covered her mouth and sobbed.
“It was truly a silent scream of gratitude,” she said outside the courthouse, hugging people she met through their shared grief.
Hess and Koch each pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of mail fraud. Investigators determined the pair stole the bodies or body parts of at least 222 victims, with another 338 “almost certainly stolen,” according to Hess’ plea agreement.
The mother and daughter sold these bodies without consent — and in some cases forged documentation in order to sell bodies with infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis, the government found.
FBI agent John Busch testified during Tuesday’s hearing that Hess ripped off logos and slogans from an organ and tissue company — Denver-based Donor Alliance Inc. — to falsely market to families that they could donate organs to help the blind see or the immobile walk through a new spine.
In reality, Sunset Mesa could not legally offer these services.
Koch, in two interviews with law enforcement in February 2018, told federal investigators that Hess was the “brains” behind the operation, that the funeral home did not keep proper records and that cremated remains were mixed together because it was “‘too hard’ to keep things separate,” Hess’ attorney wrote in a March court filing.
“She was the business part of it,” Koch told an FBI agent, according to an interview transcript included in Koch’s response to Hess’ motion. “I was really the labor part of it.”
Hess and Koch have also been named in seven lawsuits brought by families who said they were deceived and defrauded. Judgments in those cases have totaled millions of dollars.
'Tarred and feathered by the local community'
The Sunset Mesa case exposed Colorado’s lax oversight over funeral homes and crematoriums, prompting state lawmakers to enact several changes, including harshening penalties for tempering with dead bodies, beefing up regulators’ ability to inspect mortuaries and making it illegal to simultaneously operate a funeral home and body broker business.
State Rep. Matt Soper, a Montrose Republican, watched Tuesday’s hearing from the back of the courtroom. He spearheaded the legislation aimed at closing loopholes in Colorado’s funeral home oversight statutes.
“My faith in our judiciary has been restored,” Soper said after the sentencing.
Hess and Koch’s attorneys argued in presentencing statements to the judge that their clients’ motives weren’t entirely bad: They believed strongly that “without donation (of bodies or body parts) there is no cure,” Koch’s attorney wrote. Hess’ lawyers said the Sunset Mesa funeral director didn’t get rich from this scheme; she drives a 16-year-old car and is deep in debt.
“Ms. Hess has been figuratively tarred and feathered by the local community as much as one can in the 21st century,” her attorney wrote in the filing, urging the judge to consider a lighter sentence.
“This really has shattered me”: Betrayal, anger, grief haunt victims of Colorado funeral home that sold loved ones’ body parts without permission
Hess, in a 2016 interview with Reuters, said she viewed the body parts operation as a public service, helping research and medical education.
“It’s for the good of the world,” she told the news outlet, “and I like to help people.”
The 2018 Reuters investigation found Sunset Mesa operated unlike any other business in the country. The news agency could find no other examples of a body broker business operating under the same roof as a funeral home and crematory.
A former employee, cited in the Reuters story, said Koch extracted gold teeth from the deceased in order to pay for a Disneyland vacation.
It’s not illegal in the United States to sell body parts for research and education, though the industry is not federally regulated. Few states oversee the business and almost anyone — with or without experience — can dissect and sell human body parts.
Tuesday’s hearing marked the end of the Sunset Mesa legal case. But for many victims, the pain doesn’t end now that Koch and Hess are headed to federal prison.
“This is something a person never really heals from,” said Chrissy Hartman. “It becomes our new normal.”
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