On January 20, 1987, Richard Wales, an air quality engineer with the San Bernardino Air Pollution Control District, called the Hesperia fire marshal and assistant fire chief, Wilbur Wentworth, and asked him to meet about the situation at Oscar Ceramics. Last week, prosecutors filed two new charges against David Sconce, accusing him of soliciting the murder of Elie Estephan, owner of the Cremation Society of California. He would attract business from area funeral homes with his half-priced cremations and make up for the low cost with high volume. It all began with the Lamb Family Funeral Home. But then the man said, Dont tell me theyre not burning bodies. David Sconce secretly set up a new crematorium about 70 miles away in a warehouse in Hesperia, California. It is a home in every sense of the word.. On so many levels, David Sconces story is one that deathcare professionals dont like to hear. The risk of getting busted was low on account that California only had two state inspectors overseeing the funeral and cremation industry at the time. 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. Laurieanne was a bright, cheerful, God-fearing woman once described as movie-star beautiful by a rival mortician, and who played the church organ and wrote gospel songs with her choral group, the Chapelbelles. Just $4,700 a month, a little more than the average cost of a cremation nowadays. With the help of a lawyer friend, David altered the form to add the word tissues before the word pacemaker in the authorization form, letting families believe they were only authorizing him to remove any tissue necessary to remove the pacemaker. He told his parents that he wanted to start his own cremation company, working as an affiliate to the family funeral home. This was an indelicate, bone-shattering operation that David allegedly referred to as making the pliers sing.. One night in 1987, a survivor of Auschwitz called the fire chief and was adamant that was not a ceramics shop. 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. What did Disney actually lose from its Florida battle with DeSantis? But the ovens were old, accidents happened, and no investigation began. That body is burned. But it wasnt long until residents noticed the thick black smoke pouring night and day from the chimneys, the rancid oils that streamed from the building into a makeshift pit (the burning fat from the bodies), and the constant comings and goings. The reason Sconce had escaped notice for so long were the lax laws surrounding the regulation of crematories and the lack of funding for enforcement of those same laws. In the 1960s only 10% of all bodies were cremated, but by the 1980s it had become a big business, with nearly half of all deceased relatives being barbecued and placed into an urn. With the help of her husband, a glad-handing former football coach at Azusa-Pacific College, Laurieanne began taking control of the business from her parents about a decade ago, just as the publics interest in cremation blossomed. 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. The Lamb Funeral Home had only two cremation ovens. Laurieanne had always been her fathers golden child when it came to the care of the those who sought out the Lamb familys services. He had to operate the new business under the license of a ceramics factory, because thats what the massive diesel fueled kilns he was using were designed for. Thats the way it was supposed to be done. 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. Cindy testified she worked for her father, Frank Strunk, at his business, the Cremation Society of California (CSC). When Assistant Fire Chief Will Wentworth went to investigate the facility, he found everything inside covered in soot, and trash cans filled to the brim with ashes and prosthetic devices. He knew, he said, the smell of burning bodies. I said, I dont think so, its a ceramics shop, the chief later told the Los Angeles Times. David Sconce had hundred of bodies, though. At the time, brains could sold for about $80, hearts for $95, lungs for $60. Dorothy Stegeman, a former bookkeeper, testified that David Sconce told her that he made $5,000 to $6,000 a month pulling gold teeth and selling them to a Glendora jeweler. By 1985, Coastal Cremations was burning over 8,000 bodies a year, they only had two furnaces at their location in Altadena, and those ovens were running upwards of 18 hours a day. A burning foot fell out. He simply shifted operations to a metal warehouse hed already purchased in Hesperia. Twenty percent of them.. Reasonable doubt can be a real dick punch sometimes. In April 1992, five years after their arrest, Laurieanne and Jerry Sconce, now 55 and 58, retired and living penniless in Arizona, walked through the doors of the Pasadena Superior Court to stand trial for their part in the conspiracyin particular, the forging of authorization forms to remove organs from the dead. She thought it was crucial to look your best when you met your maker. Davids parents, Jerry and Laurieanne Lamb Sconce, were convicted in 1995 on ten counts each of unlawfully authorizing the removal of eyes, hearts, lungs, and brains from bodies prior to cremation. They were each sentenced to three years and eight months in prison, and were left penniless after settling a $15.4 million lawsuit from the victims families. Frustrated and bored, he and his friends egged houses and beat up homeless drunks for fun. For years, thousands of bereaved family members dealing with funeral plans for their loved ones had no idea that a Scorsese movie was taking place behind the scenes. somethings not right, he said. 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. 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. On February 12, 1985, Sconce sent a 265-pound ex-football player who carried a business card that read Big Men Unlimited to rob Waters and beat him to a pulp. A very aggressive market came about, said the Cemetery Boards Gill. The Internet Is Real Life: How A Lawyer Will Track You Down. The history of funerary practices in America reflect a complex evolution of the relationship between death and money. And if that wasnt enough to supplement Davids lifestyle, there was always the gold jar. He is currently incarcerated at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, California, and is eligible for parole in 2022. What difference does it make? a witness recalled David Sconce saying. 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. They were each sentenced to three years and eight months in prison. I could see smoke from a mile and a half away.. Get the best of Cracked sent directly to your inbox! The final chapter in the story opened Nov. 23, 1986, when a fire destroyed the crematory in Altadena. 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. . When you make your funeral plans, choosing a proper funeral home is important. 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 But wait, it somehow gets worse! Families were invited to rest as needed as he and his staff moved throughout the home clad in black, passing condolences and caring for both the bereaved and the bereft of life with compassion and dignity. Like A Lamb to Slaughter Are you being placed on the altar. Perhaps David Sconces most effective legacy in the funeral industry is being the boogeyman; the kind of monster that no funeral home director would ever want to be compared to. Prosecutors said the crematory was part of the family-owned Lamb Funeral Home in nearby Pasadena. In 1990, while Sconce was still in prison, new charges were brought against him for Waterss death, but the case was ultimately dismissed after three separate toxicologists, including Dr. Fredric Riederswho later testified in the O. J. Simpson casecould not agree if there was oleander poison in Waterss blood. Up until the night an Auschwitz survivor had enough. By the time of the Hesperia raid, the Sconces had built a business empire collecting human remains from San Diego to Santa Barbara. After stealing their stereo equipment, he coolly joined them in their pew at church. Although he was caught, he avoided jail after leading police to the stolen equipment. David wasnt too excited about embalming school, but he did see an opportunity to make money in the cremation business. Anita is the beloved mother of William Masters II and David Masters, loving sister of Aletha (Cooki) Bernardi and sister-in-law Donna Tomassone. But he had been in some trouble, notably when he admitted to police that he had broken into the house of a girlfriends parents when she refused to go out with him anymore. All Obituaries. In 1986, David Sconce and his parents expanded the family enterprise with the creation of Coastal International Eye and Tissue Bank. But thats maybe not that surprising for a team that used nepotism as a recruitment tool. Tim Waters was a 300-pound Burbank mortician who had a reputation for honesty but was unpopular among competitors in the cremation trade because he aggressively took business away from them. Well spare you from doing the math. A573819 (the funeral home case). Cremation was once a niche business. 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. As the Sconces awaited arraignment, the police made another morbid discovery. Other funeral homes bear some blame for not being more wary of the low-cost, high-volume operation, according to representatives of the families who were shocked to learn what happened to their deceased relatives. He said he never put the ashes from just one body in the urns that were returned to families. Area. Between 1985 and 1986, Coastal Cremations gross income from cremations would top over $1 million. The impact David Sconce left on the funeral business is still being felt today. Featured on ABC-TV's Nightline. 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. But they had aimed at Nimzs glass eye, foiling the plot, and at least one of Sconces associates later pleaded guilty to assault. 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. His tale of deception, greed, and complete disregard for tradition, decency, and even the law is disgraceful. 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. To many who knew him, David Sconce was the model youth, a one-time defensive back for his father at Azusa-Pacific with a surfers wave of blond hair. Skilled in consoling the grief-stricken, she had customers sign complicated and sometimes forged documents which enabled her son to mine the bodies of their recently deceased for organs, which could then be sold to medical schools and research centers. I was at the ovens at Auschwitz, the man said chillingly, Wentworth recalled. (A brochure described the funeral home as home in every sense of the word.) Lamb had also had the foresight to purchase the Pasadena Crematorium a few years earlier; it was located a few miles away, in the Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena. The ovens are cleaned, and the process can begin again. He decorated the interior with couches, chairs, and various other accoutrements to make mourners feel comfortable. Price . 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. Compromise is the language of the devil, Bruce Lamb said. For more information please contact your local David Funeral Home location or call toll free 1-888-806-6336. David didnt last long in college, dropped out after his teams losing streak started hurting his prospects. Under the state Health and Safety Code, it is a misdemeanor to cremate more than one body at a time. While family friends blame David Sconce for the scandal, employees at the preliminary hearing also implicated his parents--who are free pending trial on several dozen counts--in the operation of the tissue bank. Only much later did police begin looking into the death after David Sconce was heard bragging about poisoning him. Sconces employees were cremating anywhere from five to eighteen bodies at a time and thats perfurnace. The drawing room chapel of his Spanish mission-style building was filled with comfortable sofas and arm chairs. But Sconce beat Waters to the punch, quite literally. 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. Its a true shame that his name has to be connected to the funeral industry at all. But under the then-current California regulations, their crimes weremisdemeanors. 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. As for David Sconce, he would return again and again to court, with new charges and new parole violations. We would like to get out of the Lamb Funeral Home business, Bruce Lamb said. Prosecutors said the crematory was part. Gill said the state investigator in Southern California was suspicious of the Sconce crematory and began trying to find out how the cremations were being done. It blew over the mountains and nestled into the Los Angeles Basin, where it mingled with the air breathed in by kids smoking joints in Mustang convertibles in the parking lot of Hollywood High, and by linen-clad housewives watering their roses in the gardens of their San Fernando Valley mansions. Obsessed with fellow morticians, whom he regarded as business rivals, Sconce assembled a team of beefcake lackeys that he met at LA Kings hockey gamesa group of ex-football players he called his boys. They were tasked with traveling throughout Southern California, ferrying bodies to the crematorium, running errands, and roughing up other morticians to discourage them from competing with Sconces business. It all began with the Lamb Family Funeral Home, a decades-old business that serviced its clientele from a gracious Spanish Revival building on busy Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena, bounded by a strip mall on one side and a residential neighborhood on the other. The songs maudlin sax solo wailed through the tinny speakers of corner liquor stores and poured from car stereos. Sensing an opportunity, David Sconce set out to command the market. 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. They would then dump all of the ashes together in huge barrels. Hast recalled that he and a friend were attacked by two men posing as policemen, who threw ammonia and jalapeno sauce in their eyes. Lamb Funeral Home ptyi liikekaupan seurauksena Davidin vanhemmille Laurieannelle ja Jerrylle sen jlkeen, kun pariskunta osti hautaustoimiston Lauriannen islt, Lawrencelta. He denounced his industry as the most in-fighting, back-biting, rumor-spreading, lecherous, treacherous people youd ever want to meet in your life. David's mother Laurieanne Lamb Sconce and her husband Jerry bought out the family business from her father in 1985. Several funeral directors named in the lawsuit said they were reassured by the sterling Lamb name. He was described as brash and blunt, difficult to get along with, and sometimes more than a little intimidating. 5-7 pounds of ashes for men, 3-4 pounds of ashes for women. Dubbed the Cremation King of California by a journalist, David equipped his new Corvette with vanity plates reading I BRN 4 U.. David Sconce was a bully, says mortician Jay Brown, who started working at his own familys business, Mountain View Mortuary in Altadena, in 1971, when he was 12. . How in the world did David Sconce manage to get away with this for so long? They were the owners of funeral homeand organ harvesters. Bobs never bought Christmas seals he told me he wouldnt know what to feed them. Theyre dead.. 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. His business plan was simple enough: Sconce would obtain a license from the Department of Health to operate a crematorium. In court, it was revealed that over a three-month period, they had sold 136 brains (at about $80 each), 145 hearts ($95 each), and 100 lungs ($60 each) for use in medical schools. The remaining ashes are then marked and stored individually. Hissentence also carried the caveat of lifetime probation, which he violated often in multiple ways, including selling forged bus tickets in Arizona and attempting to pawn a stolen rifle in Montana (he and his parents were penniless after settling a $15.4 million dollar lawsuit out of court in 1992). David Sconce originally wanted to follow in his fathers footsteps and become a football player. It was done without their permission or knowledge. 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. An unsettling look at the Sconce family from the acclaimed true crime author of Deadly Lessons. The tissue harvesting itself was, unsurprisingly, not handled delicately. What they did is, they tried to corner the market, said Joe Estephan, funeral director of the Cremation Society of California. 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. This is a great book for funeral collectors. The previous owner, Frank Strunk, who lived on the premises in Los Angeles, drove them off by shouting that he had a gun, he said. Should authorities have uncovered the familys activities sooner than they did? David Sconce used to test his strength, according to one former employee, by heaving bodies in their cardboard boxes around the mortuary like bags of grain. Michael Bradbury with the recommendation that David Sconce be prosecuted, a spokesman said. In 1985 Estephan and Cindy Strunk (Cindy) were separated. The sole purpose of the company was to facilitate Davids already-flourishing side gig trafficking organs hed removed from soon-to-be-cremated bodies. 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. 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. After families signed paperwork with Laurieanne, the bodies of their loved ones were sent to the Altadena crematorium and housed in an elaborate refrigeration facility that Sconce called the cold room, where he and his cash-paid teamincluding a medical student he recruited from a tissue bankslipped rings off fingers and harvested organs to sell on the black market. By 1982, 32 percent of people who died in California were cremated, the highest rate in the nation. Estephan said he never had any run-ins with David Sconce. Sconce and his employees used crowbars, screwdrivers, pliers, or any other common hardware tool they had handy to extract the organs they planned to sell. Instead, David quietly installed crematory ovens in a suburb, licensing the facility as a ceramics shop. Welcome to Lamb Funeral Homes, with facilities in Greenfield, Fontanelle and Massena, Iowa. As if David Sconces special place in hell wasnt already bought and paid for, he found other sick ways to squeeze every nickel out of the corpses. SCONIERS FUNERAL HOME - Columbus Send Flowers Publish an Obituary In any newspaper and Legacy.com (706) 322-0011 836 5TH AVE, Columbus, Georgia , 31901 Visit the Funeral Home's Website. They said David would lift and carry cardboard-enclosed corpses around the facility for exercise, use a crowbar to crack open sternums, and store eyeballs in used cola cans. 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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. They anointed their boss with a grandiose nickname: Little Hitler.. Eyes, brains and gold-filled teeth were sold without the knowledge of relatives, while workers competed to see who could stuff the most bodies into the ancient crematory ovens, according to witnesses. Today, Laurieanne Sconces two brothers, Kirk and Bruce Lamb, are attempting to restore the business to its original purpose as a quiet family funeral home. Brown witnessed David Sconces downfall in closer proximity than mostthe Lamb family crematorium shared property lines with Mountain View. And then her son, David, joined the family business. 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. The first crematorium in the United States was built in 1876 in Pennsylvania. To make the company seem official, he and his cronies rigged up a telephone line that they attached directly to a nearby phone pole, stretching a long wire to a receiver on the dashboard of a car, from which they took calls.