Megan Hess owner of the Sunset Mesa funeral home in Montrose confessed that she had sold corpses and body parts without the consent of mourning relatives. On Tuesday this week, Hess told the Federal Court that she ran a human body parts business called Donor Services from the same building as her funeral home. Hess reportedly sold bodies and sometimes body parts of people she was meant to cremate at the funeral home.

Hess and her mother Shirley Koch began their organ harvesting business in 2009, charging clients $1000 (R16k) for cremations that never happened. Instead of cremating the bodies, the pair harvested organs and sold the bodies for surgical training and other educational purposes, The New York Post reports. To avoid suspicion, Hess and her mother gave families ashes mixed up with remains of other animal species. One family even received ashes mixed with building cement. A former employee also shared that Hess earned up to $40k (R669k) as she even extracted gold teeth for resale from some of the bodies brought in by families for cremation. Prosecutors are now calling for Hess to serve a minimum of 12-15 years behind bars for her crime. She has been out on bail since 2020.