BODY SNATCHERS AND GRAVE ROBBERS

By Celia Jolley

The word "Macabre" is from something called "the dance macabre, which denoted a dance in which a figure representing death enticed people to dance with him until they dropped down dead."  Others believe it denotes something known earlier as "dance of the Maccabees," which refers to the slaughter of the Jewish dynasty of the Maccabees. ("Arcade Dictionary of Word Origins")  Now the word "Macabre" is used having to do with death, gruesome, and horrible.

I never really traveled on the dark side, nor have wished to do the dance macabre.  However, circumstances have recently developed that drag my thoughts down in ways I never dreamed possible.  These were things I had only read about in "Huckleberry Finn," when he and Tom Sawyer spied grave robbers, and so the plot thickened.  

In earlier times they would be known as body snatchers or grave robbers, from the United States, to the British Isles, and in Egypt.   Actually, even the Romans posted guards around Jesus' grave to make sure no body snatched his body from His tomb.  Jesus aside, first, most were seeking gold or jewels.  Secondly, some were seeking the bodies of famous people for profit, like the ones who were after Abraham Lincoln's body, but who only managed to partially dislodge the lid before they were apprehended by Secret Service agents.  Thirdly, bodies were stolen in order to sell to medical colleges or such.  Before the Civil War, slaves were often buried in shallow, unmarked graves, the easier to dig up: considered the lowest on the social status, they were snatched away for someone's macabre profit, obviously not for their gold.  

Grave robbers became more bold: families built mausoleums in order to lock their dead away, sometimes with guards attending.  I have seen George Washington behind bars, so to speak, at Mt. Vernon.  There were even iron boxes, families could rent until their loved ones' dead bodies were decayed enough so that even a body snatcher would not be tempted.  Who thought!  I never gave it more than a cursory glance before.  Now my thoughts are more macabre.

However, where there is money to be had, body snatchers are still stealing cadavers to sell for profit.  There may not be laws about funeral homes stealing the gold teeth off the dead, but it is universally known that there must be an agreement or signature before a body can be donated to science.  I remember when I first became convinced that I never wanted to be a nurse or doctor: it was after seeing the cadaver in my sister's biology class in college.  Shiver me timbers!  However, there are legitimate organizations, which have serious federal oversight, where people may designate their organs and tissues to be donated so that others may live.  Then there are just plain despicable, low-down, dirty thieves who prey on the dead and their grieving relatives.

It is national news that a care facility in Montrose, Colorado, which also had on its premises a funeral parlor as well as a crematorium (how convenient), is under investigation by the FBI.  They are the only facility in at least that state which dared to do so.  Now the director Ms. Hess, her parents, the county coroner, another business owner from Cortez, Colorado, and a distribution trucking company are under investigation for complicity in stealing bodies for profit.

How do I know?  My parents lived there for years, died there, and we used the end of life facilities there: my mother in a casket and my father's ashes in an urn. The FBI notified us out of the blue that it has found where our father's body parts were sold and which body parts they were, which I do not need to tell you here.  Bags of cement were found in the crematorium which are suspected to have been used instead of ashes, along with rocks.   That way they could collect the money for the supposed ashes while selling the body parts elsewhere.

Ms. Hess has allegedly claimed to have a PHD in her field, of which none are given.  I would call it "Positively Horrendous and Disgusting!"  Allegedly, she also had brochures in her office with a legitimate organ and tissue donor's logo and with some of their same wording that made it seem like it would be a wonderful thing to donate loved one's bodies.  

I remember, as do my brother and sister-in-law, when she remarked how odd it was that something rattled like rocks in our father's urn containing his ashes and felt as heavy as rocks too.  They kept his "ashes" waiting for burial in their closet until our mother died so that they could be buried together.  Allegedly, it turned out that is often what the Hess' did, putting rocks and dry cement in urns. 

My sister remembers that at my mother's funeral, the director laughing off saying something about having to break my mother's bones to fit her into her casket.  How macabre!  How could a hundred pound tiny lady not fit into a her casket?  Why would a director say something like that?  Did she think we might pat her down and notice that part of her body was not there in the casket?  We will probably never know unless we exhume their remains, at least some of their remains since obviously all are not there.

As Christians, we know and have comfort that our parents are in heaven.  It brings to mind the resurrection of the body that Ezekiel's vision prophesied about,"Oh dem bones, dem dry bones" coming back to life. However, deceit and unauthorized theft have violated their body or bodies for  profit.  This is so vile!  Only the worst characters in history were body snatchers and grave robbers.  The bones of the deceased were considered sacred even in the Bible.  Native Americans are known especially for their right not to have their burial grounds desecrated.

It tis alleged that the mother of Ms. Hess would use a saw to cut up the cadavers and stuff them into a refrigerator to be later distributed and sold, some even going as far as China and Saudi Arabia.  Her father supposedly also had his own trucking service to move these cadavers.   Quite the family business.

It is a fact according to the FBI that our father was sold to the RRI organization.  It seems that   companies were happy to buy them because the bodies were sold for less than the going rate, thus an easy market. An unconfirmed source said that Ms. Hess even bragged about making $40,000 a month and taking their entire family to Disneyland just on the gold teeth alone.  I'm sure they laughed all through the Haunted House, Pirates of the Caribbean and Raiders of the Lost Ark on our dime.   

Now I have a split personality with living in the sunshine-- zippity do dah--and living on the dark side with morbid, macabre thoughts rolling around in my head like rocks in some people's urns.  One glimmer of hope is that justice will be served and this family will not have a single cent left of the profits off the dead and their grieving families.

*Please excuse me if I don't have all the facts straight as this is an ongoing investigation with  suppositions leaving me in a miasma of disbelief and righteous anger.