Colorado Springs widow reacts to funeral home owner’s guilty plea in body sales case
MONTROSE, Colo. (KRDO) - A Colorado Springs widow is reacting to the news that a funeral home operator accused of illegally selling her husband's body parts pleaded guilty to mail fraud in federal court.
45-year-old Megan Hess and her mother, Shirley Koch, operated the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose.
It’s been four years since Danielle McCarthy got a call from the FBI saying that the funeral home had dismembered her husband and sold his body parts.
"There's no words to describe," said Danielle McCarthy. "That was my husband of 25 years. Finding out what had happened, that he had been dismembered and sold as multiple body parts... There are no words to describe what that feels like.”
McCarthy says the trauma inflicted upon her and her family by Sunset Mesa Funeral Home is a weight she continues to carry every day.
Hess and Koch were arrested in 2020.
According to an FBI investigation, the duo was selling body parts in instances when loved ones requested a cremation.
"Who does such a vile, dastardly, despicable thing at a person's most vulnerable time, and at the most sacred time?" asks McCarthy.
Hess and Koch have been charged with six counts of mail fraud and three counts of illegal transportation of hazardous materials.
On Tuesday Hess pleaded guilty to the mail fraud charges under a deal that the other charges be dropped.
"It's a very generous plea that has been offered," said McCarthy. "I think it's definitely not anything that the victim pool would have wanted. I understand why and how the plea was offered, and why it was just the one count. But at the same time, I don't think there's justice to be found. Because you can't undo what's been done to families.”
McCarthy says the entire legal case has made the grieving process even harder, especially since her husband's remains have still not been laid to rest.
Right now his dismembered body parts remain in an FBI evidence refrigerator.
"That has been my biggest struggle, is kind of not knowing when I would get him back," said McCarthy. "As a Gold Star family, he has the right and needs to be interred in a national cemetery. We haven't been able to do that, and have met many doors because we didn't have his body to inter. That's been a big struggle as well. So not having a place to mourn, knowing I don't have him, and then you triple that with the knowledge of how he was dismembered... Very, very traumatic.”
Hess is scheduled to be sentenced sometime in January and could be facing up to 20 years in prison.
Her mother is also expected to enter a guilty plea and has a hearing scheduled on Tuesday, July 12, 2022.
McCarthy says once Koch enters a plea, the timeline for getting her husband’s remains back should speed up.
She also says her fight won't end after sentencing. McCarthy plans to push ahead and work with lawmakers to reform body brokering.
"The sad thing is, is what Hess did is technically not illegal at the state level nor at the federal level," said McCarthy. "In my addressing the court Tuesday, now my work begins to start changing laws so that this never happens to another family. So now I start the crusade to get laws changed because this is not going to happen to somebody else. Not on my watch if I can help it. That is not okay."
