What it was like to work at one of America’s most notorious funeral homes

It’s been more than seven years since the FBI raided a Montrose funeral home, kicking off one of the more harrowing true-crime stories in recent American history.

Investigators unspooled a macabre, nearly decade-long scheme by Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors owner, Megan Hess, and her mother, Shirley Koch, to sell hundreds of bodies and body parts without the consent or knowledge of grieving families.

The pair admitted to meeting with families under the auspices of performing cremations. Instead, they harvested body parts, even entire bodies, to sell through their other business, Donor Services.

They did this for eight years, handing mothers and children, nephews and best friends containers of cremated human remains — cremains — that didn’t contain their loved ones’ ashes. All the while, they were cashing in on the donated dead.

Hess and Koch each pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and will spend 20 and 15 years in prison, respectively.

The federal investigation shone a light on the largely unregulated body broker business in America and Colorado’s lax funeral home regulations. The morbid spectacle spawned podcasts, documentaries and multiple changes to state law.

Now the case is finally closed after a federal judge in April re-sentenced the mother and daughter. But because they never went to trial, the public did not get to hear from a host of relevant parties or see much of the evidence that the government would have presented in court.

The FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office have denied records requests from The Denver Post and other news agencies, saying the only information available would come from documents already filed in the case.

A recent Denver Post review of the case file included a trove of unpublished accounts from former Sunset Mesa employees, who described the bizarre, unethical and illegal practices of the notorious funeral home.

The Post also interviewed another former employee whose story was not included in court records. Together, they provide one of the most comprehensive accounts to date of the people who worked for Hess and Koch.

In addition, the case file includes emails between Hess and body broker customers, detailing the back-and-forth as the funeral director marketed stolen bodies.

Here are those stories:

JoAnn Cocozza — Shirley Koch’s assistant

Investigators interviewed JoAnn Cocozza on Jan. 16, 2018, just a few weeks before the FBI raided the Montrose funeral home.

She recalled a 2013 incident, when Hess and Koch told her that a family was coming in to pick up cremains.

The only problem?

The ashes were labeled with a name that Cocozza recognized as being a body in the cooler awaiting processing. Sure enough, the body was still there.

Cocozza told the FBI that she gave the family cremains — as instructed.

The funeral home operators kept a large bag of cremated remains in the back of the building that they used to fill up small keepsake containers for grieving family members, Cocozza said. Hess and Koch told families that these were the ashes of their loved ones.

They did this over and over again across a long period of time, the assistant said, always using the same bag of cremains.

She recounted a specific instance when the bloodwork on a body that had already been sold came back showing it had been infected with hepatitis. Cocozza expressed concern that she or others could have contracted the disease from handling the body.

“Don’t worry about it,” Koch allegedly told Cocozza, according to court documents. “Just do your job; you won’t get it.”

Koch and Hess did not tell anyone about the hepatitis finding, Cocozza told investigators.

She said Koch mentioned they were making money off gold teeth extracted from bodies. Koch bragged that they made $40,000 by selling the gold, using the money to take a trip to Disneyland.

“I get to cash these in and keep the money,” Koch once said, according to Cocozza’s interview.

Koch and Hess pushed families hard to donate their loved ones’ bodies, she said, even if people said they weren’t interested.

“It’s hard, but don’t worry, their body is just a shell,” Koch allegedly said. She and Hess insisted that the donated bodies helped cure diseases and progress science. They never told families that the bodies were sold for a profit, Cocozza told authorities.

Body brokers — also known as non-transplant tissue banks — are different from the organ and tissue transplant industry, which the U.S. government heavily regulates. No federal law, however, governs the sale of cadavers or body parts for use in research or education.

In 2017, Koch gave Cocozza a silver vial that she said contained the ashes of Cocozza’s husband. Cocozza, however, told investigators she already believed the funeral home had given her his ashes years earlier.

Hess and Koch sometimes asked her to bring forms to the Montrose County offices to get death certificates. She knew, though, that the bodies had already been processed and shipped off, she told investigators.

“If they ask, make sure you say they are still at the funeral home,” Hess and Koch said, according to Cocozza’s interview.

Cocozza could not be reached for comment.

Amanda Rackay — Megan Hess’s secretary

Amanda Rackay gave testimony to authorities on Oct. 20, 2017.

After interviewing for the job at Sunset Mesa, Rackay recalled Hess saying, “I’m paying taxes, don’t worry. It’s all legal.”

Rackay’s duties included inputting information into an electronic death registration system. Hess told her to enter all dispositions as “burial” or “cremation.” The secretary later realized, she said, that there was also an option for “donation” in the system.

She asked Hess if she should use that designation for bodies donated through Donor Services, the body-broker business that Hess and Koch ran in addition to the funeral home.

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Hess allegedly told Rackay. “Let’s (label) them all as cremation.”

Rackay told investigators that she overheard Hess tell Koch that she was sick of the state tracking the body donations.

Rackay could not be reached for comment on her testimony.

Sharla Downing — Megan Hess’s public relations representative

Sharla Downing gave an interview to authorities on July 15, 2018.

Hess directed Downing to conduct a publicity campaign targeting the largest nursing homes in Montrose. The goal: have staff make positive remarks about Hess and Sunset Mesa so residents and their families would turn to the funeral home for business.

Downing said Hess provided her with fliers with the slogan, “Our family taking care of your family.”

The funeral home director had Downing give presentations about Sunset Mesa and Donor Services. She told Downing to stay vague when describing donations, using the term “tissue” to encompass anything from skin to knees to elbow joints.

Hess never spoke about selling whole body parts unless it was a whole body donation, Downing told authorities. In those cases, the body would be going to a specific research university, which would then send back cremains. Hess said she had connections with multiple universities, including Harvard, Downing said.

Hess made grandiose statements about how these donations helped people, Downing said — statements authorities later said were not true. Bodies from Sunset Mesa went to scientific and research companies; they were not used for transplants.

But the funeral director told people a spine donated to a disabled veteran in Florida helped the person walk again, Hess told investigators. Donated eyes helped the blind see, Hess claimed.

Older adults in these presentations asked how their bodies could be used for donations. Hess instructed Downing to tell them that the skin of an elderly person was better for skin grafting because it was already stretched out.

“Hess would pull on her arm skin as she described this,” Downing told investigators.

Audiences also asked whether Hess, Sunset Mesa or Donor Services received any financial benefit from the donated bodies. Downing said Hess initially replied that she only took a small shipping fee and “does it all for the good of the community.” Another time, Hess said the business may take a small recovery fee.

In reality, prosecutors later said, Hess made substantial money from these body donations by selling them.

Downing could not be reached for comment on her testimony.

Scott Beilfuss — Sunset Mesa contractor

In 2016 and 2017, Scott Beilfuss worked for a third-party marketing company that contracted with Sunset Mesa. His job involved meeting with prospective clients and discussing their future funeral needs.

In between those meetings, Beilfuss hung out for hours at Sunset Mesa with Hess and Koch.

“I always said I would write a musical about Sunset Mesa,” he said in an interview, chuckling. “It would be like the ‘Sweeney Todd’ or ‘Little Shop of Horrors.’ It was so crazy.”

Koch spent much of the day in the back of the funeral home, dismembering bodies, Beilfuss said. She learned the craft from YouTube.

Beilfuss said he sat in the funeral home’s planning room and Koch popped in, asking if he’d like to see her work. He always declined the invitation.

“I was a paper person, not a body person,” Beilfuss said.

Hess, though, was the “driver and the mastermind of the whole thing,” he said.

The two made presentations to older folks together, trying to drum up business. Hess was good at it, Beilfuss said. She was creative, ambitious and competitive — always looking for a way to scale up their business.

“Megan always used to say, ‘We’re cremating miracles,’ ” he said. “That was their tagline.”

At the beginning, it seemed to Beilfuss like Hess had good motives. As it went on, he said, it became more about money.

“It transitioned from serving the public to building up some income to show that she was successful,” Beilfuss said. “She wanted to be viewed as a successful business person.”

Now a Grand Junction City Council member, Beilfuss said he feels Koch had no nefarious intentions. She was just doing her job.

Hess, on the other hand?

“I don’t know she believed she was doing anything wrong,” he said.

‘Get ready!!!!!!’

The court documents also included emails showing how Hess negotiated and sold donated body parts to prospective buyers.

In one email from September 2013, Hess said she could deliver a “very nice, younger muscled donor” for $1,500. The body would be embalmed and delivered to an unspecified buyer in Fort Collins.

“I wish to be your partner in donation, so if there are orders such as matching whole legs (which I have pairs on-hand), whole hearts, torsos or other tissue that you are looking for, please let me know,” Hess wrote. “I can adjust pricing accordingly to meet your needs. If I have a donor you are interested in but need different pricing to make it work for your end, let me know.”

In 2014, Hess sent the same customer an email with the subject “female torso pics.”

“I’m sorry that I haven’t sent photos,” the funeral director wrote. “I have had terrible donors for your process. Meeting with hospice on the 4th… opening the flood gates of donors. They have 4-5 deaths a day. Get ready!!!!!! I have 3 spines when needed.”

In another email, Hess told a customer she hoped to send them 150 to 200 donors per year, if not more.

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