Body Parts Saga: Former Funeral Home owner gets 20 years imprisonment

Megan Hess, a 46 former funeral home owner called Sunset Mesa and a body part donor service, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on Tuesday for defrauding relatives of deceased persons and selling body parts without permission.

Pleading guilty to fraud in July 2022, Hess admitted to dissecting 560 corpses housed in her business officer at a building in Montrose, Colorado. According to the court, her 69-year-old mother, Shirley Koch, also pleaded guilty to fraud, receiving 15 years for her role in chopping up the bodies.

“Hess and Koch used their funeral home to steal bodies and body parts using fraudulent and forged donor forms. Their conduct caused immense emotional pain for the families and next of kin,” prosecutor Tim Neff said in a court filing.

A 2016-2018 Reuters investigative series about the sale of body parts in the United States, a virtually unregulated industry, triggered the federal case. Former workers said Hess and Koch conducted unauthorized dismemberments of bodies, and a few weeks after a 2018 story was published, the FBI raided the business.

In their filing, prosecutors stressed the disturbing nature of these women’s schemes and described it as one of the most significant body parts cases in recent U.S. history. The 20-year term given was stated as the maximum allowed under U.S. law.

Reuters/S.O