Funeral Home Owners to Be Tried Over Cremations

After an eight-month preliminary hearing, three operators of a Pasadena funeral home have been ordered to stand trial in Pasadena Superior Court on 67 charges that include illegally removing body parts, harvesting dental gold from corpses and commingling human remains.

Concluding the longest preliminary hearing in Pasadena Municipal Court history, Judge Victor H. Person ruled Monday that there was sufficient evidence to try David Wayne Sconce and his parents, Laurieanne Lamb Sconce and Jerry Wayne Sconce. Their family business, the Lamb Funeral Home, cremated about 8,000 bodies in 1986--three times more than any other funeral home in the state, according to the state Cemetery Board.

David Sconce, 32, also was ordered to stand trial on charges of assaulting three morticians and trying to arrange the murders of his grandparents and the prosecutor who handled the case.

Unpleasant Matters

Person said testimony during the hearing painted a sometimes grisly picture of the Sconces’ work that “could have made the strongest stomach feel uneasy.”

The Sconces have denied any wrongdoing and complain that they have been victimized by disgruntled former employees.

Witnesses testified that the Sconces removed dental gold from corpses and also harvested human eyes, brains, hearts and lungs to sell to scientific supply companies. A former employee said that David Sconce used a screwdriver to pry open mouths and removed gold with pliers in a process Sconce called “popping chops.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Walter H. Lewis said that Sconce once claimed he made $5,000 to $6,000 a month by selling the gold.

The bizarre case began unfolding nearly 16 months ago in a corrugated steel building in the high desert city of Hesperia, about 60 miles northeast of Los Angeles. After receiving complaints about smoke and putrid odors, firemen found dozens of partially cremated bodies and cans filled with human ash.

In the following months, investigators uncovered a cremation business that Person said was driven by “unholy and unfettered ambition.” The Hesperia operation was opened in late 1986 after fire destroyed the funeral home’s crematory in Altadena. It has since closed.

The funeral home has been in Laurieanne Sconce’s family for four generations.

Respected in Community

Others in the funeral business said that Laurieanne Sconce, 52, a church organist, and her husband, Jerry, 54, a former high school football coach, were respected as proper, churchgoing people.

“Laurieanne gave off the image of a can-do woman who had a lot of energy and bright ideas,” said Bud Noakes, a Glendora mortician and former head of the Los Angeles County Funeral Directors Assn. “Jerry is a nice guy. He was like the all-American boy.”

But Person said that the Sconces “cast aside morality” in an effort to corner the local market for cremations.

The family’s troubles appear to have begun in the late 1970s, when they began offering low-cost cremations. Drivers would pick up bodies at funeral homes as far away as San Luis Obispo and the Mexican border and return the cremated remains a week later. The cremations cost about $75, compared to as much as $125 charged by other funeral homes.

Several former employees testified during the hearing that usually six to 15 bodies were cremated at one time and their ashes randomly portioned out to relatives.

Much of the prosecution’s case focused on David Sconce, who allegedly played the most prominent role in the illegal activities and had violent tendencies. Some friends testified that they sometimes referred to him as “Hitler.”

The younger Sconce was charged with assaulting three morticians in 1984 and 1985 after they questioned the cremation operation.

David Sconce also faces charges that he unsuccessfully solicited the murder of his grandparents so his mother could inherit the funeral home. He was later charged with trying to arrange the murder of Lewis, whom Sconce blamed for the trauma his family suffered.

The younger Sconce is being held without bail in County Jail, while his parents are free on $5,000 bail.

If convicted on all counts, David Sconce faces a maximum sentence of 11 years in prison, and his parents eight years.