FBI searches funeral home in Montrose
FBI agents on Tuesday searched a Montrose funeral home whose owner also operates a business in the same building that sells human body parts.
The Montrose Daily Press reported around noon that FBI agents were on scene at Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors. Montrose Police Commander Gene Lillard confirmed the search to The Denver Post, saying that Montrose police officers helped provide security while Montrose detectives assisted in the search. But he said the search occurred entirely “under the jurisdiction of the FBI,” and all evidence seized was in FBI custody.
A reporter from Grand Junction television station KKCO 11 News posted a photo on Twitter showing a black truck parked in front of the funeral home’s entrance, with a man in what appears to be an FBI windbreaker standing next to it.
FBI spokeswoman Amy Sanders told The Associated Press that agents had a court-authorized search warrant but released no additional details about the investigation. She said no one was arrested during Tuesday’s search.
Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and the body-parts brokerage, which is called Donor Services Inc., together form a business unlike any other. An extensive investigation by Reuters news agency found no other body broker in America that shares space with a funeral home.
Body brokers take donated cadavers and sell parts to educational or medical research facilities. In price lists viewed by Reuters reporters, Donor Services charged $500 for a human head or $1,000 for a torso. Reuters also spoke to one former employee who said the mother of the businesses’ owner boasted of selling gold teeth extracted from cadavers to pay for a vacation.
Colorado law does not regulate body brokers, and there are thus far no public allegations that bodies sent to the funeral home only for burial or cremation ended up on the body broker side. The FBI investigates cases involving violations of federal law and business activities that cross state lines.
In a statement last month to the Montrose Daily Press, Megan Hess, the owner of both businesses, defended her practices.
“I have worked tirelessly in Western Colorado for more than 15 years to proudly serve my community as a funeral director,” Hess said in her statement. “Donation is an option for families, just like burial or cremation.”
Sunset Mesa has no disciplinary history with state funeral home regulators. However, a spokesman for the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies said last month that the state is investigating nine separate complaints against the funeral home, which he characterized as an above-average number.