Colorado regulators are investigating nine complaints against a Montrose funeral home whose owner also operates a company out of the same building selling human body parts.
In addition, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been questioning former employees of the business as part of a separate inquiry, according to a report this month by the Reuters news agency. One ex-employee told Reuters of gold teeth removed from cadavers at the body parts business and sold to pay for a Disney vacation, among other details.
But it is also not illegal under Colorado law to sell body parts for profit from cadavers that are donated to such brokers. And the Reuters report contained no allegations that bodies sent to the funeral home only for burial or cremation ended up on the business’ body broker side.
The scrutiny falls on Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors, the funeral home, and Donor Services, the body parts company. Both are registered in state records at the same Montrose address and linked to Megan Hess, who is listed on Sunset Mesa’s website as the funeral home’s owner. Both are registered as tradenames for the Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation, which is set up as a nonprofit corporation.
Together, they form a business unlike any other in America. No other funeral home in the country shares a building with a body parts broker. Such brokers generally sell body parts to research or educational institutions, according to Reuters.
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