Shirley Koch told investigators that her daughter Megan Hess was the “brains” behind an alleged body-selling scheme at Sunset Mesa Funeral Home Directors, according to Hess’ recent motion to be tried separately from Koch.
The same motion indicates Koch’s planned defense is to disavow knowledge of a scheme and to lay the blame at her daughter’s feet.
Both women were federally indicted in 2020 on charges of aiding and abetting mail fraud with respect to more than 30 decedents whose arrangements were handled through Sunset Mesa, which formerly operated in Montrose. They also were charged with three counts of violating hazardous materials laws, based on allegations they had shipped the heads of three people who were positive for hepatitis-C without the proper documentation.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office contends Hess and Koch operated a years-long scheme to acquire human bodies and body parts, which the women deny.
Hess formerly operated Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and the associated business, Donor Services Inc., which was described as a non-transplant tissue bank that provided donated remains for purposes such as medical research.
Both businesses permanently closed in 2018, after the FBI served search warrants at the funeral home.
As the investigation went on, family members — citing the FBI or via civil suits — alleged their deceased loved ones had been harvested and sold without their knowledge or permission and/or that they were given substances like cement mix and cat litter that were represented as cremains.
Still others alleged receiving cremains that were not those of their loved one, based upon items found in the ashes that were not associated with the deceased.
Hess, who surrendered her registrations to the state of Colorado, can no longer operate funeral homes.
After several delays, Hess and Koch were scheduled to stand trial starting July 25 (jury selection). That date is now in doubt, after Hess’ attorneys on March 8 filed a motion to sever her case from Koch’s.
According to that filing, Koch’s statements to law enforcement in 2018 are prejudicial to Hess, while Koch’s defense — that she did not participate and that her daughter was at fault — is mutually exclusive of Hess’ own defense. They are “such that the jury, in order to believe the core of one defense, must necessarily disbelieve the core of the other,” Hess’ attorney Ashley Petrey wrote.
The motion to sever states that about eight months after the initial allegations comprising the facts of the conspiracy, Koch began telling investigators information that, if true, implicates Hess.
As the document spells out, the information includes allegations that Hess was “the brains behind (Sunset Mesa)”; that Koch had questioned the need for testing and said it was “apparent” if bodies had hepatitis-C or HIV; mistakes were made on lab test forms; that employees didn’t keep proper records and that a lack of consent from decedents’ families “was possible and verbal consent was not common.”
Per the document, Koch further stated that a consent form was “always in the file” and she had speculated as to whether Hess obtained consent over the phone.
Koch is claiming Hess was the only person dealing with the places where bodies were shipped, buyers, doctors, billing, transcribing, death certificates, paperwork and international shipping, according to the March 8 motion.
The summary of Koch’s alleged statements to law enforcement also says Hess switched from metal ID tags to non-metal ID tags and that “cremains would be mixed because it was ‘too hard’ to keep things separate.”
Koch reportedly admitted that Sunset Mesa would start processing bodies sometimes before the blood work results came back and that the business had no special labeling for possibly infected tissue.
“Shirley Koch also went on at length (and in an extremely graphic manner)” about a teenage decedent specifically listed in the indictment, the motion says.
Hess, meanwhile, never made a statement to law enforcement.
Her motion to sever says that on Dec. 17, 2020, Koch’s lawyers informed her defense team that Koch’s defense at any joint trial “would be to actively disavow knowledge and participation in the alleged scheme while simultaneously accusing her daughter, Megan, of being the ‘brains behind [it].”
The Sixth Amendment has been found to bar letting a jury hear admissions a non-testifying codefendant has made outside of court, when there is a joint trial, Petrey argued. If the women are tried together, then admitting Koch’s statements violates Hess’ right to confront and cross-examine witnesses, the motion says.
Petrey also argues that since Koch apparently intends to put all blame onto Hess and claim no involvement, the jury would have to believe Hess is guilty if it accepts Koch’s defense.
Further, Hess faces an additional burden if she is tried with Koch: “Given the cultural attachment our society proscribes to the mother-daughter relationship, a jury is likely to find Shirley Koch’s square place of blame onto Megan Hess’ shoulders even more credible than they would in most other typical codefendant/co-conspirator fact patterns,” Petrey argued.
Because of rules pertaining to hearsay from a co-conspirator, none of Koch’s recorded statements to law enforcement are admissible and they would be impossible to redact and yet remain cogent enough for a jury to hear, she said.
Case precedent calls for severance when a jury would be prevented from rendering a reliable verdict in circumstances like Hess’, Petrey concluded in the motion. Case law states such risk exists when “evidence of a codefendant’s wrongdoing in some circumstances erroneously could lead a jury to conclude that a defendant was guilty.”
Koch through her attorneys had no objection to being tried separately. A ruling is pending a hearing on the motion.
Katharhynn Heidelberg is the Montrose Daily Press assistant editor and senior writer. Follow her on Twitter, @kathMDP.