‘HORRIFIC AND MORBID’

Ex-Funeral Home Owner Gets 20 Years for Selling 500 Victims’ Body Parts

Megan Hess and her mother dissected and shipped body parts that were, in some cases, infected with HIV and Hepatitis C, despite their assurances the parts were not diseased.

A former funeral home operator in Colorado was sentenced to two decades behind bars on Tuesday for illegally dissecting 560 corpses and selling the parts without relatives’ consent. Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to mail fraud in November under a deal with prosecutors, who dropped the other charges against her. Her 69-year-old mother, Shirly Koch, was sentenced to 15 years after admitting to mail fraud and aiding and abetting. “The defendants’ conduct was horrific and morbid and driven by greed,” U.S. Attorney for Colorado Cole Finegan said after sentencing. The pair were accused of dissecting the bodies between 2010 and 2018, telling their victims’ families that their loved ones would be cremated. Instead, they shipped the parts to medical training companies, which were unaware the bodies had been fraudulently acquired. In some cases, the parts were hazardous, infected with HIV, as well as hepatitis B and C, even as Hess and Kock reassured their buyers the material was disease-free. “We came today to hear the handcuffs click,” one victim’s relative told The Denver Post. “And we got that.”