When family members came to pick up the remains of their loved ones, they were handed a box with the ashes of hundreds of people, scooped from the drum and measured out by weight according to the gender of the deceased. Dubbed the Cremation King of California by a journalist, Davids cash-paid employees would tell horrific tales of Little Hitlers (as they called him) joy at popping chops, his term for extracting gold teeth, which hed sell to a local jeweler for an extra $6,000 each month. May 6, 2013, 3:27 PM. Charged with four felonies, he was extradited to California, and sentenced to 25 years to life. Whilst cremation is definitely becoming more popular after people pass away, funerals still remain the traditional option for many people. 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. David Sconce originally wanted to follow in his fathers footsteps and become a football player. Michael Bradbury with the recommendation that David Sconce be prosecuted, a spokesman said. Cue dramatic organ music. The autopsy also discovered digoxin, a common heart medication, in Waterss bloodthough Waters didnt take heart medication. The Lamb Funeral Home (the funeral home owned by Sconce) case led to a massive lawsuit that also involved 100 mortuaries that contracted with the funeral home for cremations. After looking into similar poisonings, the Ventura County coroner drafted an official report for the prosecution: If an individual were poisoned with an oleander leaf [or an alcoholic beverage in which an oleander leaf had been soaked], he could die from this, and the findings in the blood of digoxin would be about that of the blood level of Mr. Waters.. As a result of the case, the Legislature passed a bill authorizing inspection of crematories on demand, and it was signed by Gov. He found embalming school to be boring, and that wasnt where the money was anyway. I was at the ovens at Auschwitz! Wentworth, Wales, and investigators from Californias Cemetery and Funeral Boards drove over to Oscar Ceramics to investigate. 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. Home. In May 1988, a pile of charred bones, teeth, and prosthetic devices was found in the crawl space beneath David Sconces former rental home in Glendora, where he had lived until early 1987. Tissue donations required the consent of the next of kin, so Davids mother Laurieanne was in charge of getting the deceaseds family members to sign the proper paperwork or sometimes trick them into signing the paperwork and if they refused, hell, theyd just forge the signatures anyway. What could have been (and should have been) a career-ending calamity was no problem for David Sconce. 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. 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. Two months after Waters was assaulted, he mysteriously died at his mothers home in Camarillo while he was visiting for Easter. It was horrific, says Jay Brown. If consent for the removals was not offered, Davids mother would forge the signature of a family member. In 1985, Charles Lambs granddaughter Laurieanne Lamb Sconce, 49, scraped together $65,000 as a down payment and bought out the family business from her father, Lawrence, who had succeeded Charles. Property Type. That infamous title belongs to David Wayne Sconce. But the ovens were old, accidents happened, and no investigation began. 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. He knew what Sconce was up to with his cremation racket, and threatened to out him in the industry newsletter, Mortuary Management, which was run by a fellow mortician, Ron Hast, and published local gossip and stories about the latest trends in the funeral business. When the editor of a mortuary industry newsletter started asking too many questions about the companys business practices, Sconce sent two of his boys over to the mans house dressed as policemen. Others prefer the elegance provided by grave headstones though. Yet, somehow Sconce continues to make news 22 years after authorities discovered burning body parts in a ceramics kiln Sconce was using as a makeshift crematory. Luckily, Sconce had already scouted a second crematory location, and he quickly reassembled his operation in a corrugated metal warehouse in Hesperia, a way-out desert town populated mostly by veterans and retirees, located in San Bernardino County, some 70 miles northeast of Los Angeles. That was a great step towards preventing another disaster like this from ever happening again, or at the very least ensuring it would be detected long before it could even remotely get this bad. Sconces thugs had also gone after Ron Hast and his partner Stephen Nimz the year before at their home in the Hollywood Hills. In late 1982, he used the industry contacts andthe two crematory furnaces from his familys funeral home business to start his own company, Coastal Cremations Inc., even though he didnt officially file the paperwork on the business until two years later. Six law firms, including Melvin Bellis in San Francisco, have filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of relatives of 16,000 decedents, accusing 100 mortuaries of sending bodies to the Sconces despite indications that something was wrong. somethings not right, he said. In 2015, an LA-based paranormal investigation group suggested in a blog post that the building may be haunted, but it was eventually purchased by a light bulb distributor which in 2018 turned the second floor into a three-bedroom apartment available for rent for $4,700 per month. Sconces employees were cremating anywhere from five to eighteen bodies at a time and thats perfurnace. 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. Due to various plea deals, Sconce would ultimately serve only two and a half years of his sentence. Homes for rent: Nadezhda Sofia City - 0 listings. The $15.5 million suit in 1991 involved 20,000 relatives of people cremated at the funeral home. did david sconce the crematorium technician of the. He had veered towards his fathers interests more than his mothers, and had played football. As for David Sconce, he would return again and again to court, with new charges and new parole violations. and passed on the business to his son, Lawrence, who became president of the Pasadena school board. 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. Hast recalled that he and a friend were attacked by two men posing as policemen, who threw ammonia and jalapeno sauce in their eyes. Under the state Health and Safety Code, it is a misdemeanor to cremate more than one body at a time. David, however, was aware that there was a lucrative, and underserved, market for human organs for research and educational purposesand the form signed by family members would only need a little re-working to authorize their removal without explicitly informing a bereaved family that anything other than a pacemaker would be removed. Charles F. Lamb, then-president of the California Funeral Directors Association, oversaw the building of the structure in 1929. It would pass to his two grandsons, who gamely kept it afloat for a year before deciding, as they had years before, that the funeral business was not for them. His reputation was sterling, even among his bitter rivals in the rough-and-tumble world of mortuary services, and at one point he headed the funeral directors association for the state. But thats maybe not that surprising for a team that used nepotism as a recruitment tool. The dead body became an incorruptible image of a peaceful afterlife. Harvested hearts, eyes, and brains were then sold on the black market for up to $95 a pop. Finding embalming school boring, David decided to leverage the familys crematorium as an entrepreneurial opportunity. Coastal Cremations Inc., of which David Sconce was president, dealt mainly as a wholesaler to other mortuaries, charging only $55 for each cremation, about half what competitors charged. Built in 1895, the Pasadena Crematorium offered only two ovens, each of which David would stuff with five, six, and eventually as many as 18 bodies at a time. David Sconce had not been raised in the funeral business. This is a great book for funeral collectors. For many, cremation was becoming a cheaper and more attractive option. At 300 pounds, the 24-year-old was considered morbidly obese. having his employees rough up three rival morticians. 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. Coastal Cremations charged other mortuaries only $55 per cremation and sought business widely as the use of cremation boomed in California. 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. 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. And two aged ovens. 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. 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. 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. What did Disney actually lose from its Florida battle with DeSantis? The drawing room chapel of his Spanish mission-style building was filled with comfortable sofas and arm chairs. Good evening, and welcome to another episode of Lawyers & Liquor Presents Freaky Friday. 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. The mortuaries, in turn, would charge customers anywhere from $265 to $1,000 for cremation services. 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. 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. (No, Seriously. He even took the test to become a police officer, but was rejected when a vision test determined he was colorblind. Hallinan said he had to break the leg of one body to get it in and that it might have blocked up the chimney, starting the blaze. All Obituaries. They pulled out eyeballs, plopping them unceremoniously into Coke cans and paper towels. This month, we have a real treat for you, a home cooked meal if you wish, arising from the curious case of Pasadena Californias Lamb Funeral Home and its erstwhile owner, David Sconce, whose attempts to make it exceedingly clear You cant take it with you led to a massive reform of the California mortuary laws and regulations. He denounced his industry as the most in-fighting, back-biting, rumor-spreading, lecherous, treacherous people youd ever want to meet in your life. Shed dropped out of college to marry Jerry Sconce, a charismatic and gregarious six-foot, 200-pound football player at the University of California, Santa Barbara, whom shed met at Sunday school. For two months, Sconce cremated bodies with diesel fuel in industrial-size ceramic kilns. 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. At the time, brains could sold for about $80, hearts for $95, lungs for $60. A double-oven structure built in 1895, it was known among funeral directors as the oldest crematorium west of the Mississippi. 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. Compromise is the language of the devil, Bruce Lamb said. Ode to the Professional Mourner. 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. I could see smoke from a mile and a half away.. On Feb. 12, 1985, Waters was bloodied by Danny Galambos, a 245-pound ex-football player who carried business cards reading Big Men Unlimited. Galambos, who eventually pleaded guilty to assault, testified that David Sconce told him to make it look like a robbery, so he also stole Waters jewelry. Although he began his cremations in mid-1982, he didnt start his business on paper until 1984, doubling the number of bodies he cremated each year. 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. (And lest you think stuff like this was confined to the barbaric past, uh, we have bad news. Honestly, if it werent for one Holocaust survivors sense memory and a call to the Air Quality Control hotline, theres no telling how much longer and further David Sconce wouldve taken this scam. Although the crematoriums ovens would eventually operate 24 hours a day, David Sconce continued to push the limits of maximum capacity. It is a home in every sense of the word.. 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. Business started booming! (Before Mitford died in 1996, she requested to be cremated, and had the bill for $475 sent to the corporate headquarters of a funeral home chain.). On November 23, 1986, the nearly century-old facility burned to the ground after Davids employees somehow shoved 19 bodies into each of the ovens at once. David wasnt too excited about embalming school, but he did see an opportunity to make money in the cremation business. However, theres something else that can mimic digoxin in the bloodstream: oleander, one of the most common and most poisonous trees in Southern California. 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. They were each sentenced to three years and eight months in prison. Then Charles retired, leaving the business to his son, Lawrence, who would then pass it on to his daughter Laurieanne and her husband. He was released in 1991. However, some people do prefer to be cremated. They were, for lack of a better term, working in bulk. Things that are acceptable to remove are medical devices, such as pacemakers, that may explode in the heat of the flames, and a form existed authorizing the crematory to remove exactly those items. He told his parents that he wanted to start his own cremation company, working as an affiliate to the family funeral home. In California at the time, and elsewhere, it was illegal to remove things from corpses. In 1989, defendant and appellant David Wayne Sconce pled guilty to multiple counts relating to the improper handling and disposition of human remains in Los Angeles Superior Court case No. 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. And if that wasnt enough to supplement Davids lifestyle, there was always the gold jar. 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. Because Grandpa had no eyes. In 1974, as a freshman planning to major in business, he robbed a former girlfriends house twicethe second time on Christmas Eve, while she was at church with her familyas revenge for breaking up with him. 5-7 pounds of ashes for men, 3-4 pounds of ashes for women. Only much later did police begin looking into the death after David Sconce was heard bragging about poisoning him. When the neighbor was told it was just a ceramics factory, he shouted, Dont tell me I dont know what burning bodies smell like! Welcome to Lamb Funeral Homes, with facilities in Greenfield, Fontanelle and Massena, Iowa. 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. The brothers, who have not been accused of any wrongdoing, are left to wrestle with a conundrum: How could the ingredients for an American success story, ambition, hard work and a professed respect for family and God, be twisted into a tragedy of such perverse dimensions? 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. She gradually brought her husband Jerry into the business, and their son David, age 26, in 1982, when he became manager of a branch, the Pasadena Crematorium. The remaining ashes are then marked and stored individually. Laurieannes personal life was less charmed than her professional one. Cremation was once a niche business. 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. 7 years ago. Fantastic. 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. . About Us. 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. You're the first one to shed a tear and the last one to leave the post-funeral . The Lamb Funeral Home in Fontanelle is assisting the family. 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. David played defense on the Azusa Pacific football team, the Cougars, but they lost game after game, and David soon dropped out of college. 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. You can find him being mistaken on Google Search for a hockey player whose name is one letter off from his, or you can find him on Twitter. What difference does it make? a witness recalled David Sconce saying. Prosecutors said the crematory was part. Two months later, after spending Easter ill in bed at his mothers house in Camarillo, Waters died of what was assumed to be a heart attack. Perhaps, Gill said. 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. 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. Homes for sale: Nadezhda Sofia City - 0 listings Show Filters Close Filters Close Map. Laurieanne, one of Lawrences two daughters, was bright and so pretty that a rival mortician would describe her as movie star beautiful. She carried herself with a touch of gentility befitting the familys position in the community, sprinkled her conversations liberally with Biblical quotations and wrote sacred songs for her own gospel group, The Chapelbelles. Her fathers favorite, she demonstrated a gift for consoling survivors at the mortuary, some of whom gave her money to save for their own funerals. In fact, the family once appeared in magazine ads, flanking their old reliable Maytag washer while dads football team uniforms flapped in the breeze. He violated this probation by moving to Montana without permission in 2006, and again by stealing a neighbors rifle in 2012. 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. Another reason: The low, low prices weren't all that was helping Sconce corner the SoCal cremation market. Davids big idea for generating business for Coastal Cremations Inc. was to offer the service for less than half what was considered the industry standard for the time. George Deukmejian at the end of the summer session. That broke the previous record of 18 bodies in one furnace, the employee said. It was stupid but it was funny, he said. 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. Its a true shame that his name has to be connected to the funeral industry at all. Welcome To David Funeral Homes. They were the owners of funeral homeand organ harvesters. But, as if the organ theft and filling sales werent enough, there was yet another black mark to discuss. But he recalled that on the night the business was transferred to him, several people broke into the offices.
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