Coke was originally supposed to make you smarter or something. Thats the way it was supposed to be done. Accumulating the emblems of success as his business took off, David flashed wads of money and cruised around in a candy-apple-red Mercedes-Benz and a white Corvette with a personalized license plate that displayed his macabre sense of humor. These acts were done by their son, David, began Laurieannes defense attorney in his opening statement, describing the mass cremations and stealing of gold teeth. However, funerals can be funded by asking friends and family to donate to an online GoFundMe page that could start raising money to help families cover the funeral costs. California passed new laws (and may have inspired other states to follow suit) that expanded the resources for state inspectors and authorized them to be able to inspect these facilities on demand. A former employee testified that Sconce used a flathead screwdriver to pry open jaws to get to the gold fillings, a process he called making the pliers sing and popping chops. Sconce sold this gold to a company called Gold, Gold, Goldhelmed by one of his friendsnetting upwards of $6,000 a month. somethings not right, he said. But, for a time, the business continued as always. His company, Coastal Cremations Inc., would advertise itself to funeral homes in Los Angeles that didnt have access to a crematorium. Furniture salesman Ed Shain, who rented the house after Sconces departure, discovered the remains while replacing the screen on the crawl space and called the authorities, who then spent two days filling two large boxes full of bones, dentures, bridges, bits of skull, pacemaker wires, and a soda can packed with molars. Sensing an opportunity, David Sconce set out to command the market. Laurieanne Lamb Sconce and her husband, Jerry, former operators of the Lamb Funeral Home in Pasadena, were arrested in 1987, with their son, David, after investigators alleged that they. By 1985, the man who journalist Ken Englade would later dub the Cremation King of California displayed his sick sense of humor with a vanity plate on his Corvette that read I BRN 4 U, while Coastal Cremations employees zipped up and down the coast, shoving bodies packed in cardboard into the back of company vans and station wagons. Simi Valley police plan soon to turned the case over to Ventura County Dist. Lamb Funeral Home | 3911 Lafayette Rd | Hopkinsville, KY 42240 | Tel: 1-270-889-9393 | | Lamb Funeral Home | 3911 Lafayette Rd | Hopkinsville, KY 42240 | Tel: 1-270-889-9393 | Fax: 1-270-886-5262 | Home. As the story goes, Nimz opened the door to two large men posing as policemen who sprayed him in the eyes with a mixture of jalapeo juice and ammonia; they hoped to blind him, so they could beat him up without being identified. David would keep a large jar in the preparation room and, with a pair of pliers, yank gold fillings from the teeth of the deceased, dropping them in the jar and, once it was full, taking it to a jeweller he knew who was willing to overlook the situation in return for a steady supply of gold at a discount. Ex-mortician who committed bizarre Calif. crimes decades ago could get life sentence Associated Press LOS ANGELES - David Wayne Sconce's past life as a mortician has come back to haunt him. For many, cremation was becoming a cheaper and more attractive option. At the Lamb Family Funeral Home, Laurieanne was the kindly, motherly face of Davids morbid scheme. A burning foot fell out. He even used such colorful terms for this act as popping chops and making the pliers sing. Hed then sell the gold to a jeweler buddy of his, which reportedly netted him an additional $6,000 a month. However, theres something else that can mimic digoxin in the bloodstream: oleander, one of the most common and most poisonous trees in Southern California. David Wayne Sconce, 56, made headlines in the late 1980s when he pleaded guilty to the gruesome charges of commingling bodies and taking gold from the dead. What the authorities found when they raided the warehouse in January 1987 was beyond imagination: outside, a sludge pit of liquid human waste, mingled with dirt; inside, gallon cans filled with human ash, bone, and partially cremated body parts. If somebody offers you a new Ford for $8,000 and Im paying $16,000 . I BRN 4U, it read. As the Sconces awaited arraignment, the police made another morbid discovery. David Sconce, former operator with his parents of Lamb Funeral Home in Pasadena, pleaded guilty Wednesday in an Arizona courtroom to fraudulently selling phony bus coupons. Bodies were cremated there for two months until December 23, 1986 when a neighbor called in an air quality complaint over all of the horrible smoke the furnaces were belching out 24/7. David didnt last long in college, dropped out after his teams losing streak started hurting his prospects. What difference does it make? a witness recalled David Sconce saying. ADD LOCATION (eg. Ever protective of his mother, David Sconce became angry and said he was going to have his boys pay the editor a visit, Dame said. You can toss money at this site and its author on Ko-Fi, Patreon, or just through PayPal. But Dr. Thomas Weber, owner of the Telephase Society, a pioneer in the field of low-cost burial, said the deal was too good to be true. Without further adieu, lets fire up the crematory ovens as we step back in time thirty years to sunny Pasadena, California and the Lamb Funeral Home, where in the depths of the ovens something sinister has begun. The Lamb Funeral Home was the essence of an old-style mortuary, operated by a family that was the All-American stuff of advertising copy. She had a rapport with mourners, a way of comforting them, and indeed was so effective at the work that some mourners would return shortly after the funeral of a friend or loved one to start making arrangements for their own. Coastal Cremations charged other mortuaries only $55 per cremation and sought business widely as the use of cremation boomed in California. Death Facts: Part 72. All good? A single body goes into the oven. Sconce said his words were misinterpreted. He said the full message was, Lewis will die of AIDS.. The ovens are cleaned, and the process can begin again. And if that wasnt enough to supplement Davids lifestyle, there was always the gold jar. It was purchased by another funeral home, and then sat abandoned for years, and is today a showroom and storage space for a light bulb distributor. Michael Bradbury with the recommendation that David Sconce be prosecuted, a spokesman said. Prosecutors declined to discuss the evidence, but Estephan said that before he took over the business in 1986, Sconce had been negotiating for it with the intention of moving more aggressively into the retail end of the cremation business. attempting to pawn a stolen rifle in Montana, in 2013 was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison, an LA-based paranormal investigation group suggested in a blog post, a reader of the paranormal website commented on the blog about Lamb Funeral Home that his or her mother-in-laws body, Keeper Memorials Unveils Obituary Writing Assistant Powered by ChatGPT AI, For Ben Wasserman and his Surprising Audiences, Comedy is a Natural Way to Grieve. Just the best television + film hand-picked from around the globe. The insane true story of the 1980s mortician who turned his familys funeral home into a nightmare cremation factorypulling gold teeth, harvesting organs, and threatening anyone who got in his way. He spread rumors that the Sconces were cremating more than one body at a time, according to Richard Gray, who runs Aftercare Funeral Service in Van Nuys. The grisly discoveries on Jan. 20, 1987, have touched off one of the most bizarre scandals in the history of the California funeral industry. Criteria Reorder Criteria. Then Charles retired, leaving the business to his son, Lawrence, who would then pass it on to his daughter Laurieanne and her husband. They were the owners of funeral homeand organ harvesters. He entered the plea pursuant to an agreement offered by California Superior Court Judge Terry Smerling. In 1982, his parents encouraged him to go back to school, become an embalmer and join the family business on his mothers side: Lamb Funeral Home in Pasadena, founded by Davids great-grandfather back in 1929. In the 1980s, cremations were just coming into vogue as an inexpensive option for the funeral of a loved one. For two months, Sconce cremated bodies with diesel fuel in industrial-size ceramic kilns. At the time Mitfords book was first published, the average bill from an undertaker was $750 ($6,300 today); by 1991, when the book was updated and revised, the cost had risen to $7,800 (now $14,500). A crowbar cracked open sternums in order to access organs. By 1913, when the Cremation Association of America was founded, there were 52 crematoriums across the nation, including the Pasadena Crematorium, which would later be purchased by the Lamb family. For more than 60 years, Southern Californians entrusted the bodies of their loved ones to the Sconce family's Lamb Funeral Home. Another part of his cover story was that they were using the ovens to make heat shield tiles for the Space Shuttle. While serving his sentence, he narrowly escaped charges for the murder of the owner of a local crematorium, although David had openly bragged to his lackies that hed slipped deadly oleander into the mans drink the day he died. David Wayne Sconce was the accused, and it was alleged that back in 1985 he had killed a rival mortician, Timothy R. Waters, to stop him exposing some dark and illegal activities at the Lamb Funeral Home, the family business where Sconce worked. By 1982, 32 percent of people who died in California were cremated, the highest rate in the nation. The Ventura County coroners office re-examined tissues saved from the original autopsy of Waters and changed the cause of death to poisoning by oleander, a common plant in California. In February of 1985, Sconce sent another one of his thugs, this time an 245-pound ex-football player, to beat up a rival crematorium owner Timothy Waters, who had been threatening to spill allof the tea on Sconces operation. And then his employees broke the record, fitting 38 bodies in a single ovenbreaking the leg of one, blocking the chimney, and setting the premises aflame. He found embalming school to be boring, and that wasnt where the money was anyway. That body is burned. The license was sacrificed in the 1990s, and the building in which such desecrations took place still stands empty in Pasadena, the furnaces forever silent. As for David Sconce, he would return again and again to court, with new charges and new parole violations. His employees called him Little Hitler because of the number of bodies he burned. After burning, cremains were sifted together according to weight in what was called the ash palace, a dusty room that was also filled with trash cans full of human fat and spare dental parts such as bridges or dentures. But, thanks in part to the success of Mitfords book, the number of people cremated in the United States in the decade after its publication rose by nearly 80 percent. Several funeral directors named in the lawsuit said they were reassured by the sterling Lamb name. Because Grandpa had no eyes. He was a little too slick in my opinion, but some people are attracted to that. . Jerry Sconce told him to put in 3 1/2 to 5 pounds of ash if the deceased was a female and 5 to 7 pounds for a male, Dame said. David Sconce originally wanted to follow in his fathers footsteps and become a football player. The final chapter in the story opened Nov. 23, 1986, when a fire destroyed the crematory in Altadena. Anita is the beloved mother of William Masters II and David Masters, loving sister of Aletha (Cooki) Bernardi and sister-in-law Donna Tomassone. All Obituaries. That infamous title belongs to David Wayne Sconce. He also pleaded guilty to soliciting a hit man to murder another rival, and was given the bizarre sentence of lifetime probation, a legal ruling many scholars might refer to as a pretty valid argument for burning this goddamn place to the ground.. And Sconce would charge the funeral homes the low, low price of $55 per body, half of what his competitors offered. Reasonable doubt can be a real dick punch sometimes. Prosecutors said the crematory was part. Among these things were any body parts not necessary for removal prior to cremation. The ovens went from barely used to running for upwards of 18 hours a day to handle the load of up to a hundred bodies in storage, awaiting their final disposition in David Sconces flames. Cremations are now highly regulated affairs. It is used, but in great shape. The society has 5,000 members, who pay the society to arrange their cremations. They were each sentenced to three years and eight months in prison. Frustrated and bored, he and his friends egged houses and beat up homeless drunks for fun. Price . They would then dump all of the ashes together in huge barrels. But under the then-current California regulations, their crimes weremisdemeanors. So, the fire meant they were out of business, right? David Wayne Sconce was a hothead and a creepa golden boy turned failed college football player, with sparkling blue eyes that led some to compare him to Paul Newman. Perhaps, Gill said. A handwriting expert hired by the Los Angeles County district attorneys office said Laurieanne Sconce had signed the names of survivors on some of the forms permitting organ removal; it is a felony to take organs without permission. Compromise is the language of the devil, Bruce Lamb said. The revelations have also prompted a new state law making it easier to police crematories and lawsuits against scores of other mortuaries that sent bodies to the Lamb Funeral Home in Pasadena, attracted by its bargain-basement prices. COPYRIGHT 2005-2023 Cracked is published by Literally media Ltd., Every Purposefully Corny Joke from Norm Macdonalds Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget, Ranked, 15 Bits Of Trivia So Powerful, They Would Have Instantly Vaporized Our Ancestors, I Was the Bowling Consultant on The Big Lebowski, 15 Incredible Inventions That Were, Technically, Gigantic Failures, 5 Elaborate Mysterious Projects Carried Out Literally Underground, TRUE CRIME: THE CASE OF THE GHOULISH CALIFORNIA CREMATORIUM OWNER, 12 Healthcare Innovations That The US Needs To Adopt ASAP, Kevin Bacon Was in a Band Called Footloose When He Was 15, 15 Trivia Tidbits About Trailer Park Boys, Molly Shannon Got Hired on Saturday Night Live and Mugged on the Same Day, Five Times Michael Shannon Showed Up and Made Everything Better, Conan O'Brien Runs Down Every Hideous Mutation of His Hideous Body. He liked to attend hockey games with a bunch of beefy, ex-football players that he called his boys. Sconces boys testified that they listened to his boasts, ran his errands and roughed up his enemies. But cremation alone wasnt enough to float the business, and other funeral homes began to wonder how David could undercut the competition by so much and not lose moneyand the answer is simple. This means you can plan for you, or your loved one, to be cremated at Riemann family funeral homes or others without the concerns that may be raised by reading on. She loved funeral work, especially the task of beautifying the dead: applying makeup to the waxen skin of the embalmed. But, as if the organ theft and filling sales werent enough, there was yet another black mark to discuss. Although he was caught, he avoided jail after leading police to the stolen equipment. Making sure your will and testament is in place before you pass away gives you the choice of where youll go after you pass away, and the horrific events that are detailed in this story no longer come to pass thanks to a change in the law. After stealing their stereo equipment, he coolly joined them in their pew at church. His facility destroyed, David Sconce quietly moved the operation to Hesperia, 20 miles north of San Bernardino in the high desert, where he had installed ovens for what was listed on business permits as a ceramics factory. What they did is, they tried to corner the market, said Joe Estephan, funeral director of the Cremation Society of California. The remaining ashes are then marked and stored individually. When Abraham Lincoln was shot, his embalmed corpse was beautified by Dr. Thomas Holmes, the father of embalming, and sent on tour across the nation. For sixty years, families in Southern California trusted the Sconce-owned Lamb Funeral Home with their loved ones' remains. Im your host, the BOOzy Barrister, here to guide you through the dark world of human, and not-so-human, nature as we explore the paranormal, the macabre, the spooky, and the downright sickening aspects of the law. There was jovial Jerry Sconce, 55, the Bible college football coach, his church organist wife, Laurieanne Lamb Sconce, 52, and their son David, 32, a charming ex-football player who had plans to grab a big piece of Californias booming cremation industry. In one case, according to prosecutors, survivors were prevented from viewing their loved ones body because the eyes had already been taken. More scrutiny is being given to the handling of bodies, however, in the wake of the Sconce revelations and two other scandals in recent years, including a Northern California case involving a firm hired to drop ashes over the Sierra. And as for the Lamb Funeral Home, the business built by Charles Lamb in 1929? Desperate for a job after leaving school, David found work as a dealer in a casino and as an usher at a hockey stadium. What did Disney actually lose from its Florida battle with DeSantis? When you make your funeral plans, choosing a proper funeral home is important. On February 19, 2019, a reader of the paranormal website commented on the blog about Lamb Funeral Home that his or her mother-in-laws body was one of those mistreated by David Sconce. The only family member accused in the strong-arm tactics allegedly used against competitors, he is charged among other things with plotting to kill the prosecuting attorney, Walt Lewis. Whilst cremation is definitely becoming more popular after people pass away, funerals still remain the traditional option for many people. Can there be a better endorsement? His business plan caught on, and business boomed. Just $4,700 a month, a little more than the average cost of a cremation nowadays. Depicted by friends of his parents as the mastermind behind the assembly-line cremations, David Sconce is being held without bail. Before the Civil War, most Americans died at home and were buried nearby, often in the local churchyard. . Before we begin, lets get something serious out of the way. He was described as brash and blunt, difficult to get along with, and sometimes more than a little intimidating. David Sconce secretly set up a new crematorium about 70 miles away in a warehouse in Hesperia, California. And, with everything wrapped up in a semi-legal bow, David embarked on his next venture: scooping out eyes, hearts, and brains from the deceased and selling them to researchers throughout the country, having his mom forge the signatures of the next of kin on declaration forms, and making a tidy sum on the side. 7 years ago. Sconce burned bodies 24 hours a day, churning out so much black smoke that neighbors routinely called the fire department, thinking the mortuary was on fire. They ran for two months before authorities became suspicious that the business was not what it seemed. In the rear of the funeral home was the so-called Ash Palace, where employee Jim Dame testified that he sifted ashes trucked in from the crematory in big barrels. this is a true crime case that involves illegal body harvesting and the possible murder of timothy waters. The Lamb Funeral Home had only two cremation ovens. One night in 1987, a survivor of Auschwitz called the fire chief and was adamant that was not a ceramics shop. At the warehouse, the soles of their shoes stuck to floors slick with human fluids, and when they pried open one of the hinged doors of Sconces kilns, the remains of a human foot fell out, engulfed in flames. Valley girls took up residence at film-famous malls like the Sherman Oaks Galleria, and boys in metal bands snorted cocaine inside nightclubs up and down the Sunset Strip. Next Freaky Friday: Silence of the Lamb Funeral Home This wider lens gives you a glimpse of a dark place where sociopathy meets capitalism and legal dysfunction. But then the man said, Dont tell me theyre not burning bodies. What curse was placed on the O'Brien family that would give them a son with a webbed foot? .more Get A Copy Welcome To David Funeral Homes. Well spare you from doing the math. He knew, he said, the smell of burning bodies. A Ghoul is defined by Websters dictionary as a legendary evil being that robs graves and feeds on corpses. David Sconce certainly fit that definition. But the heirs to the fourth-generation funeral empire betrayed that trust with a series of gruesome crimes against the dead. . Presents an account of the gruesome crimes committed by the Lamb Funeral Home, describing how David, Jerry, and Laurieanne Sconce were involved in such crimes as mutilation of corpses and murder Print length 364 pages Language English Publisher St Martins Pr Publication date January 1, 1992 Dimensions 4.5 x 1.25 x 7 inches ISBN-10 0312928203 Its resulted in a great tragedy for them, for a third-generation business and for the families of the deceased. During the questioning, the couple threw their son under the bus, blaming him for the cremation conspiracy. They had initially faced 67 charges total, including charges relating to the mass cremations, but they escaped most of those counts after throwing David completely under the bus and then throwing thatbus under a bigger bus. Sconces main competitor was Timothy R. Waters, who owned the Alpha Society, a Burbank-based cremation service, and who had a reputation for stealing business from other morticians. A coroner attributed the official cause of death to buildup of fatty tissue in Waterss kidneys. The impact David Sconce left on the funeral business is still being felt today. A proliferation of people and cars had led to the citys signature smog, and gridlock gripped the streets. Better run your business honestly, because you dont want the media to mention you alongside thatguy! Another reason: The low, low prices weren't all that was helping Sconce corner the SoCal cremation market. Under the state Health and Safety Code, it is a misdemeanor to cremate more than one body at a time. David Sconce secretly set up a new crematorium about 70 miles away in a warehouse in Hesperia, California. Thirty-six charges had already been dismissed before the trial, and the couple was acquitted of three charges and a mistrial was declared for the other six. By all accounts a beefy man with a love for money, when other options ran dry for him his parents decided to bring him into the family business. David Sconce pleaded guilty to 21 charges of conducting mass cremations, mutilating corpses, and the aforementioned assaults-for-hire. A double-oven structure built in 1895, it was known among funeral directors as the oldest crematorium west of the Mississippi. LOS ANGELES (AP) -- David Wayne Sconce's past life as a mortician has come back to haunt him decades after he gained notoriety for stealing body parts from corpses and plotting to kill a funeral business rival. Kathy Braidhill, then a crime reporter for the Pasadena Star-News, followed the story of David Sconces crimes, and wrote a 1993 book, Chop Shop, about his cremation scheme. The Sconces were arrested on numerous charges relating to forgery of donor consent forms, removal of organs and body parts from the dead and selling them to organ banks and for scientific research, removal of gold dental fillings, and theft of funds from trust accounts. In 2006, Sconce violated his probation by selling forged bus tickets in Arizona, moving to Montana without permission, and stealing/pawning a neighbors rifle. In Sweden, they send you a thank-you text when they use your blood. On November 23, 1986, the crematorium caught fire after two employees tried to break the company record by putting nineteenbodies in each furnace. Sure, the inspectors had their suspicions that something wasnt right, but every time they tried to inspect the facility, they were turned away and told to come back with a warrant, which was hard to acquire because all of Coastal Cremations (forged) paperwork made everything appear legit. His dad, Jerry, had played for the University of California, Santa Barbara, and later became the head coach at Azusa Pacific College, where David enrolled in 1974. With the family reputation tarnished, the Lamb brothers have agreed to surrender the funeral homes current license, and they have applied for another one to operate under a new name, the Pasadena Funeral Home. You would think that any handling of human remains being offered at Burlington Coat Factory-level discounts would be an immediate red flag, but sadly no. In 1985 Estephan and Cindy Strunk (Cindy) were separated. 7 years ago. David Wayne Sconce made headlines in the late 1980s when he pleaded guilty to the gruesome charges of commingling bodies and taking gold from the dead. Sconce would arrange to pick up a body, transfer it to the Lamb familys crematorium in Altadena, wait the two hours it took to cremate a single bodyone hour to burn, one hour to cool the ovenand bring the ashes back to the funeral home.
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