Welcome back to Pushing Up Lilies. In today’s chilling episode, we delve into the unsettling and grotesque world of body brokers. We'll take a close look at the horrifying case of Megan Hess and Shirley Koch, who exploited grieving families by selling body parts and giving out the wrong cremains. I'll guide you through the details of their deceitful operation and shed light on similar cases where families unknowingly had their loved ones’ remains sold. As a forensic death investigator, I’ve seen my share of disturbing cases, but the betrayal and greed behind these acts are truly appalling. Join me as we uncover the dark secrets and unethical practices that lurk within this grim industry. * Listener discretion is advised.
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0:06 Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies.
0:08 I'm your host, Julie Mattson.
0:10 Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
0:24 Do I have some stories for you?
0:26 Are you ready?
0:31 Hey, guys, I'm coming to y'all this week from Deadwood, South Dakota.
0:35 And it's kind of exciting here because it's the week before the Sturgis bike rally and there's a lot of bikers here.
0:43 The bikes are gorgeous and they're lining the streets.
0:46 I don't know if y'all have ever been to Deadwood, but it looks like an old western.
0:53 I don't know, ghost town type thing.
0:56 Beautiful, tons of hotels, lots of casinos and really good restaurants.
1:04 We're here and the weather has been in the eighties.
1:07 It's absolutely gorgeous.
1:09 I have to tell you though.
1:11 Last night we were inside a casino gambling, and I was sitting by a door, and I could hear what sounded like hail.
1:20 I went out to look in the front window and it was literally hailing so hard.
1:26 And then there was just a river of water running down the street, down the main street here in Deadwood and the water started coming into the casino and literally flooded part of the casino that we were in.
1:42 I think it rained for, I don't even know how long y'all, but I think they said that they got three inches of rain in just a very, very short amount of time.
1:53 It was absolutely crazy.
1:55 I've never seen anything like that.
1:57 It really surprised me.
1:58 I don't think anybody that worked in the casinos or was in the casinos had ever seen anything like that either.
2:05 It was pretty crazy.
2:07 I'm sure a lot of the businesses had some loss because of the amount of water that was coming into their buildings.
2:16 But anyway, not winning any money though, unfortunately, but we are today experiencing beautiful weather, which is a little bit different from what we experienced yesterday afternoon when that storm blew through, but we're all here to talk about it.
2:33 I know that last week I mentioned to y'all that I was at the I AC M E conference in Las Vegas and I heard a lot of interesting speakers and that's another reason why I love to go, in my area in Texas, we don't have shark attacks and we don't have people attacked by alligators, although there have been alligator sightings and the alligators have been said to be quite large, but we don't typically have people that are attacked by sharks or people that are attacked by alligators.
3:12 It's interesting to us as death investigators to hear stories from people who work in areas where they have those dangers.
3:20 Like we don't have bears.
3:22 You know, no one's going to get attacked by a bison in Texas typically.
3:28 I mean, there are some there but they're not in the wild.
3:32 We don't have elk, we don't have moose and so we just don't see people injured or killed by wild animals that often we see more people killed by household dogs probably than we do wild animals, especially in our area.
3:52 Not to say that it can't happen in some of the more rural areas.
3:54 But even to hear some of the speakers talking about responding to scenes that are in dangerous areas, areas that may be too dangerous for the death investigator to actually go out to and take photos like we do in the mountains when people are hiking, and they fall.
4:16 It's not always safe for the investigators to take part in that process and to go out and take photos.
4:24 That's what I love about.
4:26 It is just to hear stories from people who maybe investigate this that we don't experience, not that we'll never experience them, but we just don't see them on a regular basis.
4:40 One of the speakers that really caught my attention was an FBI agent and I think he's been with the FBI forever, but he did a presentation on Arthur Rathburn, and I'll talk a little bit about him later.
4:56 But it got me to thinking about funeral homes and mortuaries who might be doing things that are illegal, kind of behind the scenes without family's knowledge.
5:10 I did a little bit of research, and I found a funeral home in Colorado where the operators were sentenced in January of 2023 for illegally selling bodies and body parts without the consent of the family.
5:27 I think in this particular situation, they were offering maybe free cremation to the families in return for body donation.
5:39 But what they were doing is maybe not being 100% upfront about where the body was being donated to and what would be done with it.
5:52 Some families were like; sure, I'll get a free cremation but the cremated remains that were being returned to the family were not even actually their family member.
6:04 I don't know, I just got to thinking about it and I wanted to do a little bit of research and now one of the owners, Megan Hess, she was sentenced to 20 years and her mother Shirley Koch received 15 years and this was all for a scheme to sell body parts to broker services.
6:26 Now, they also each plead guilty to one count of mail fraud and aiding and abetting, but they were essentially disrespecting the wishes of the family members and degrading the bodies and selling these body parts for profit.
6:43 Now, in some cases, they even offered the donation to the family and the family rejected the entire idea.
6:53 But they sold the body parts anyway and then gave someone else's cremains or maybe even a mixture of multiple people's cremains back to the family.
7:04 This is horrifying.
7:07 I'm sure you can only imagine if this happened to your family.
7:11 They actually ran the Sunset Mesa funeral home, and this was in Montrose, Colorado and they ran it from 2010 to 2018.
7:21 They were seeking families to wish to cremate their loved ones.
7:26 A lot of families were never asked again about donation, but some were asked and rejected the idea.
7:35 But what they were doing is donating the bodies anyway, for profit.
7:42 They were getting paid and then they would give the family someone else's cremated remains.
7:49 Now they also shipped bodies and body parts that tested positive for infectious diseases.
7:59 We're talking about hepatitis C, hepatitis B HIV.
8:04 And they were telling the buyers the bodies were disease free.
8:09 They were shipped through the mail or on commercial airline flights which is a violation of dot regulations regarding transporting hazardous materials.
8:22 The brokers, that they ship these body parts to most of them had no knowledge that these bodies and body parts were obtained without consent.
8:35 Now in March of 2024 Hess's attorney asked that she be resentenced because the court didn't consider the services and goods that she provided to the victims like headstones and death certificates.
8:50 Well, guess what, you're required by law to provide a death certificate that was a service that she was required to provide.
9:00 But the US Department of Justice stated that the goods and services had no value to the victims and were not originally brought up in the trial.
9:08 They just kind of pulled that out of the air to try and get her resentenced to get her a lighter sentence.
9:15 The scary thing is y'all and I didn't really realize this because I obviously have no part in it.
9:23 The sale of body parts in the United States is unregulated.
9:28 So Hess's attorney said that she was unfairly called a witch and a monster, but she was actually broken, and her conduct was attributed to a traumatic brain injury that she suffered at the age of 18.
9:44 I don't know really what that was all about.
9:47 I feel like, you know, they may have had record that she had some sort of a traumatic brain injury that could have caused her to have mental problems.
9:56 But it's just sad.
9:58 I mean, it is so sad.
10:00 26 victims, families described their horror in the courtroom when Hess and coach went up for trial.
10:09 Aaron Smith's mother's shoulders, knees and feet were stolen for profit when she believed that her mother's cremains were safely in her house on her fireplace.
10:23 They were not.
10:25 Tina Shannon's mother was also dismembered.
10:29 Now, it's important to know it is illegal in the United States to sell organs like heart kidneys.
10:37 Those types of things for transplant, they have to be donated.
10:42 This is completely different than the transplant agencies who may approach a family after their loved one's death and ask for organs to be donated.
10:56 Those decedents have to be kept on life support.
11:00 The donor is tested while at the hospital.
11:05 If there are no signs of infectious disease and they are height and weight proportionate and whatever rules they have, then the organs are then harvested and transplanted.
11:19 This is a completely different industry than transplant organization.
11:25 I will tell you that.
11:27 But again, selling body parts like heads, arms and spines is not regulated by federal law surgical training companies and a lot of firms by arms legs, heads torsos, not knowing that they have been fraudulently obtained.
11:53 Now, Hess was charging families up to $1000 for cremations that never occurred.
12:00 She lied to more than 200 families who received cremated ashes from bins mixed with the remains of several different people.
12:10 Now, they also have to pay $436,427 in restitution to the victims of their body cell scam.
12:21 Now you can't get blood from a turnip, as we always say, and these women are going to be in prison.
12:29 But any money that they get from tax returns, other income or any kind of financial gain has to be paid to satisfy this restitution.
12:39 Now they are in custody of the US Bureau of Prisons in Waseca Minnesota.
12:46 Is that not horrifying?
12:49 I mean, just think about… What would you do if your loved one's head was sold to a broker to be used?
13:01 I'm just going to say by a company who was teaching medical students how to do specific surgeries and that company had no knowledge that it was illegally, or not really illegally, but it was obtained in this way.
13:18 This is another incident.
13:20 But Southern Nevada donor services offered ways for families to eliminate expensive funeral costs because we all know funerals are expensive.
13:30 And that's why a lot of people nowadays with this economy are taking the cremation route.
13:37 Now they would offer again free cremation in exchange for donating a body to help advance medical studies.
13:47 The owner Joe Collazo was accused of stealing again, donated body parts valued at $75,000 and selling them to a customer in Turkey.
14:00 He also in the fall of 2005, he had a facility, and neighboring tenants began complaining about a mysterious stench and bloody boxes in a dumpster outside of his facility.
14:16 When health inspectors arrived, they found a man in scrubs with a garden hose, sawing a human torso in the sun.
14:26 Now, in addition, moldy body parts were found in an unplugged freezer and tissue and blood were basically just washed into the gutters which weaved past storefronts down the road.
14:40 Now they said this torso was being prepared to rent to surgeons and then be cremated.
14:48 But thousands of Americans are unknowingly contributing to this commerce.
14:53 Now, Collazo, the owner of Southern Nevada Donor services is now a manager at a car dealership, and he drives for Uber which is horrifying y'all.
15:03 I mean, I use Uber all the time.
15:05 I'm like, really did my Uber driver do this to people.
15:09 I don't know, I'm just, but in most states again, anyone can legally purchase body parts.
15:16 One for profit body broker earned 12.5 million in three years from the body part business.
15:24 And there are only four states that closely track donations and sales.
15:29 And those states are New York, Virginia, Oklahoma and Florida.
15:35 And from 2011 to 2015 private brokers received 50,000 bodies and distributed more than 100 and 82,000 body parts.
15:47 And that's crazy.
15:49 These brokers thought that they were getting all of these body parts with permission of the family and a lot of the paperwork that they were getting from these funeral homes and mortuaries was forged.
16:08 So arms and shoulders are being shipped to businesses, holding training seminars for like orthopedics if they want to teach surgeons about carpal tunnel surgeries and those types of things.
16:22 Again, the brokers are obtaining these body parts from funeral homes believing that the family agreed to this donation.
16:34 I will say being in the medical field.
16:36 I know that there are a lot of brokers who sell or rent body parts.
16:44 The surgeons and the medical staff truly do benefit from this because working on or learning to do surgery on a plastic body part is completely different than doing surgery on a cadaver.
17:01 But a broker can sell a donated human body for 3 to $5000 but it can go up to 10,000.
17:10 A cadaver can be broken up into parts to meet the customer's needs.
17:16 Documents from brokers show price ranges such as $3600 for a torso with legs.
17:25 They can get up to $500 for a head, $350 for a foot and $300 for a spine.
17:35 Now, the story that the FBI agent told us at the I AM E conference was very disturbing.
17:42 And again, that's what kind of opened my eyes to this whole organization.
17:47 There was a Detroit body broker named Arthur Rathburn and he was accused of supplying unsuspecting.
17:55 Again, doctors with body parts infected with HIV and hepatitis for use in training seminars.
18:02 Some brokers invest millions in quality control procedures and equipment, but a lot of them, y'all just own a set of freezers and they use a chainsaw to carve up the debt instead of investing in surgical saws and doing it the correct way.
18:19 Even in Honolulu, police were called to storage facilities leased by body broker, Brian Avery in 2011.
18:28 And each time decomposing remains were found, but he didn't commit any crimes because there is no state law saying that it's not ok.
18:38 Again, he probably had signed paperwork from the funeral home that he purchased these body parts from.
18:45 It's just kind of scary.
18:47 But on again to Arthur Rathburn, he had been on the radar of federal authorities for years in 2010 border agents caught him with 10 heads that he was transporting from Canada.
19:01 Y'all, I saw the pictures at the conference.
19:04 I was at… I saw the pictures of these heads and the things that Rathburn had, it looked like cut up with a chainsaw to sell to people.
19:15 Now, Rathburn's warehouse was raided in 2013 and some of the shipments in there included like a severed penis.
19:23 Y'all, why… would he dismember someone like that?
19:29 Now in 2012, the US government also purchased things such as heads, arms and legs for blast experiments from donors who had not given permission.
19:41 Rathburn's victims also included doctors and dentists who acquired body parts from him.
19:48 And again, these guys are victims because they did not know that they were obtained without permission from these families.
19:56 He was hired in 1984 by the University of Michigan Body Donation program at the age of 30 and two years later, he left the school following allegations of misconduct.
20:09 Now, you know he's up to no good when he obtains a court order, barring release of personnel records.
20:15 So he didn't want anybody to find out why he was no longer at the University of Michigan, but it was disclosed that he mishandled donor ashes.
20:29 But in 1990 he set out on his own to sell body parts.
20:34 Now, Ed Eichenlaub was a doctor's assistant in Pittsburgh, and he began working with Arthur Rathburn and he said he would go to Rathburn's facility and find huge ice chests full of heads that had been wrapped in plastic.
20:51 Again, I saw these photos and that's what I love about the seminars because when you get to meet and talk to investigators that work these scenes, you get to see their scene photos.
21:04 Now, in 2004, Rathburn's warehouse was inspected and there were no documents proving that the bodies were donated willingly.
21:13 He had distributed between 2005 and 2007, more than 200 severed heads.
21:23 When he filed bankruptcy, his inventory included 91 heads, 18 spines and six hips.
21:32 But even after bankruptcy, he continued to operate.
21:38 And in 2012, there were picnic style coolers containing eight heads in red liquid that arrived at the Detroit airport.
21:47 Rathburn said that the liquid was Listerine used to preserve the specimens.
21:53 He said that it was not blood but y'all this guy was, I mean, literally, they found like bloody saws that were not professional instruments used by people who do this for a living in a lot of these people's warehouses.
22:11 We're talking about decomposed body parts, unplugged freezers.
22:18 Rathburn was arrested in January of 2016.
22:22 Now I'm not saying don't donate especially organs because you know that you're helping another person.
22:30 But if you donate body parts, please, please, please, make sure that it is from a well trusted funeral home or mortuary who does not have a record of anything hinky like this because donating could mean that you are surrendering legal control of what happens to your loved one's body.
22:57 Once you sign that form, donating can mean that their body parts can be separated, sent to different locations and treated with… Disrespect, I think, is the best way for me to say it.
23:17 It kind of woke me up y'all because it's kind of scary to think that this has probably happened to a lot of people who are completely unsuspecting and have no knowledge that the cremains that they have in their home do not belong to their loved one.
23:35 All I'm going to say putting that out there and I know we talk mostly about true crime but to me like this is a crime again, even though there are no federal laws against it, I just in my mind like this is horrific.
23:51 This is, I mean, yes, these people were already deceased, but these families were lied to and these bodies were dismembered and sold without their permission in the case in Colorado.
24:08 I mean, that restitution is nowhere near what those families should be receiving and they're not going to get any of it.
24:16 I mean, let's be honest, these women are in prison.
24:19 They're older.
24:21 I think the mother was 69.
24:23 They're not ever going to be able to pay back that restitution.
24:27 I mean, they're not making any money.
24:29 So the taxes are going to be, I mean, even if they did anything like, write a book or anything like that, which I'm sure they probably won't because the money would go to the families.
24:41 You know, there's no way that the families are going to get what they should out of this horrific event.
24:49 I mean, I just could not, absolutely, could not believe it.
24:53 And so just because I'm nosy and y'all can do this too, I'd love to hear your stories if you do it.
24:58 But human bone is also, it's legal to possess human bone and sell human bones in the United States.
25:07 There are a few exceptions which, you know, include protected archaeological resources and that kind of thing.
25:16 But there is a company called the Bone Room and they can ship human bones to other states except for Georgia, Tennessee and Louisiana.
25:32 And for the low price of $5000 you can actually buy brain slices that are in acrylic.
25:41 You can buy the skull of a neonate for $2300.
25:51 You can buy the partial skull of a female for $1700 you can buy a three year olds, skull for $1800.
26:03 Now, these supposedly were sent to them from a pediatric surgeon who specialized in facial reconstruction, and they are supposedly being sold for study and for teaching purposes.
26:21 But you can also buy a half skeleton male complete with 23 vertebrae, but it has a badly broken lower leg says it's in nice condition though.
26:36 The skull is missing some teeth.
26:38 There are only 22 present $6000.
26:41 I don't know y'all.
26:42 This just does not seem right to me.
26:46 You can buy a half skeleton for $4500.
26:52 Male Caucasian with some damage to the cranium.
26:56 Some teeth are brown or missing.
26:59 It has an abrasion to the leg bones and a toe tip is missing.
27:06 This one comes in a wood box, it's 4500.
27:12 This is happening.
27:13 This is like real life.
27:15 Now, these people's family members may know that these are their family members, body parts and they may not.
27:24 And I'm not accusing that particular company of doing anything illegal.
27:30 They do make a point to say that it's not illegal to sell human bones on their website.
27:38 Now, there's another place called Skull Store and, on that website, I actually found where you could buy a human fetus for $4000 and you can purchase gallstones.
27:52 Those are only $8 apiece.
27:54 So if you ever want to sell your gallstone.
27:56 Well, there you go.
27:58 You can purchase a human hand for $255.
28:02 You can purchase rib bones and human teeth.
28:07 Oh, they're sold out.
28:07 Never mind.
28:08 Sorry, they're $19 apiece.
28:10 Well, it depends, depends on how big the teeth are and what part of the mouth they came from.
28:16 But it looks like all their teeth are sold out.
28:18 But, you can buy an Alna for 100 and $29 and then there's a mystery bow.
28:27 There's a mystery box for 30 bucks.
28:31 You can get a box of bones, but you don't know, you don't know where they came from.
28:35 This all seems crazy to me y'all, I don't understand.
28:43 They're having a sale on shrunken heads.
28:45 They're $14,000.
28:46 This is real.
28:49 And I just have to say, I mean, this is an oddity shop.
28:55 They say that all of these products were ethically obtained.
29:02 I believe they are located in Toronto; I believe.
29:06 Crazy.
29:08 Anyway, on that note, I just thought I would let you all know that because I looked it up.
29:12 I was just curious, like, can you buy him both?
29:15 Because I know I've heard years ago that someone bought like a human finger on eBay and I always thought, yeah, whatever.
29:21 It's not really a human finger.
29:22 You can't do that, but you can, you can do that.
29:26 Just do your research, please, please, please.
29:30 It's horrifying.
29:31 To me anyway, I'm going to gamble a little bit more.
29:35 Wish me luck.
29:36 I have had zero luck so far since we've been here, and I had zero luck in Vegas as well.
29:43 But I am going to go enjoy the weather a little bit more and I hope that y'all have an amazing week.
29:50 I look forward to next week and guess what?
29:53 Y'all, my YouTube channel.
29:55 I'm about to start recording for it.
29:56 Sorry, I'm trying to get all these vacations in this advanced pathophysiology class out of the way.
30:02 My final is Saturday.
30:04 I'm scared to death because it is cumulative and there are 100 questions.
30:10 I am not looking forward to that and I'm not excited that I'm taking a final exam while I'm on vacation, but you got to do what you got to do.
30:20 We were told when the class started that if we had a wedding planned on a test day that we needed to reschedule our ceremony.
30:27 So of course, I don't, but that's how seriously they take it.
30:31 I will be taking a final on Saturday.
30:33 Wish me luck there.
30:34 And so when I get home, this class will be over, I'll have a couple of weeks off before my advanced pharmacology class starts and get some recordings on my YouTube channel.
30:47 Please, please, subscribe to that now so that you will be ready when all of the recordings start.
30:53 It is Brains, Body Bags and Bedside Manner.
30:58 I have several people that I met at the IACM conference who express their desire to be interviewed.
31:05 And so we'll be having some interviews come up, we'll do some interviews on the YouTube channel, and you can meet the person that I'm talking to, which I think will be exciting.
31:16 I think that adds a little bit when you can see them and put a face with a voice.
31:22 So that'll be really exciting.
31:23 The Patreon will be up and running soon.
31:26 There'll be several different monetary options.
31:30 One will just be to buy me a cup of coffee to keep me awake every month so I can continue to record as I hold down two full time jobs and go to grad school.
31:40 The others will get you some extra options such as special behind the scenes videos and a shout out on the show.
31:50 That'll be kind of exciting.
31:52 I'm looking forward to that.
31:53 The subscription boxes are still in the making and we're super excited about that as well.
32:00 There's a lot of stuff up and coming.
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32:07 Bye y'all.
32:09 Thank you so much for joining me today on pushing up Lilies.
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32:23 Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at PushingUpLilies.com for merchandise and past episodes.