The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 81 - The Lamb Funeral Home

Episode Date: May 17, 2015

Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine the Lamb Funeral Home of Pasadena.SourcesTour DatesRedbubble MerchPatreon

When you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. That in-law sweet guest house where your parents stay only part-time Airbnb it and make some money the rest of the year whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host. Well hello you are listening to the Dullup. This is a bi-weekly podcast. Each week I tell a story from American

history to my friend Gareth Reynolds but you didn't just say your name who has no idea what the topic is about but you forgot your name. So how are people gonna know who you are Dave Anthony? You just fucked up the show. Oh god. Yeah. Do you want to look who to do? I'll do one bottle. People say this is funny. Not Gary Gareth. Dave okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it far fine? And this is not going to come to tickle you quad cat. Okay. You are queen fakie of made-up town. All hail queen shit of Liesville. A bunch of religious virgins go to mingle and do my thing. Hi Gary. No. Is he done my friend? No. No. Go Gary. Gareth. Uh sake. He's dead. Come on. That one's real far away. Look. Girl. 1929. Jesus you really hit me with that one. Charles F. Lamb built the. Just 1929. That's all I'm giving you. Charles F. Lamb built the

Lamb Funeral Home in 1929 on Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena. And just to be clear it was for humans not lambs. Correct. It was not already. It was not our first issue. It's not a funeral home for lambs. Yeah. But that would be awesome. Yeah they get lambotomies. The Lamb Funeral Home was the essence of an old-style mortuary operated by a family that was all-American. Stuff of advertising copy. In fact the family once appeared in magazine ads flanking their old reliable Maytag washer while dad's football team uniforms flapped in the breeze. Wait what? They look so American. They look like such an American people that they

were in a Maytag ad. Oh okay. I thought you meant it was like a tie-in with the funeral home Maytag. I mean that would be awesome. Like they just have like a bunch of bones and a dryer and they're just like can you believe it. It really gets the whites in. The whites get so clean. The whites are wider and the blood is gone. There was the fun Jerry Sconce 55 who was a Bible college football coach. His wife Lorianne Lamb Sconce 52 a church organist and their son David 32 a charming ex-football player. David was the one who had big plans to grab a large piece of California's booming cremation industry. I mean I already just you know

what cremation is not good. Nothing can go wrong here. I do not. The drawing room chapel of his Spanish mission-style building was filled with comfortable sofas and armchairs and the slumber rooms families were encouraged to make themselves as much at home as though they were in their own residence according to an old company brochure at the funeral. Yep. I don't think you want people back. It is a home in every sense of the word. I'm just gonna take a nap. You know what I'm gonna make some spaghetti. You guys like the garlic bread. I'm a big cooker. I love cooking. You guys mind if I take a bath. Alright I'm gonna go take a bath

and then I'm gonna have a barbecue out back with some of my closest friends. Lamb served as- I'm gonna get shit-faced in here. I'm growing bot in the closet. I'm gonna go bang a whore in here. Lamb's that is home to you isn't it. Oh listen if you say spaghetti I know I'm getting banged nearby. Lamb served as president of the State Funeral Directors Association and passed on the business to his son Lawrence who became president of the Pasadena School Board. So these guys are all up in Pasadena. Okay. Like they're a prominent family. Sure. Yeah they were in a Maytag gap. Lori Ann one of Lawrence's two daughters was

bright and so pretty that a rival mortician would describe her as quote movie star beautiful. She carried herself with manners and behavior befitting of the family's position in the community. A rival mortician is like no she's beautiful. She's so hot I wish she was dead. No as he strokes his little mustache. No she's just movie star high. I want to embalm her. He often sprinkled her conversations with- she often sprinkled their conversations with biblical quotations and wrote sacred songs for her own gospel group. Gospel. It's funny that she wrote sacred songs. They were very sacred. It's hard to you know that's normally something that comes with time.

Her gospel group was called the Chapel Bells. B-E-L-L-E-S. Hello what's up girl. The wordplay for the Lord. Lori Ann was her father's favorite and she was very helpful with the business. She had a gift for consoling survivors at the mortuary. Some of whom gave her money to save for their own funerals. That's weird. Isn't that what a spouse is? That's that's some fucking upselling right there. I'm so sorry about your wife. Couldn't you also buy something for yourself when you die? You know I haven't bought myself something in quite some time. Maybe maybe a coffin. I'd love to buy a coffin. Look at my ass. I'm gonna cook into that spaghetti for you. With the help of her husband a former football coach at Azusa

Pacific College, Lori Ann began taking control of the business from her parents in 1978. This was just at the time the public's interest in cremation blossomed. What year? 1978. In North America there were only two recorded instances of cremation before 1800 but things started to heat up in 1876 when Dr. Julia, you like that? I put that in. I threw that shit in when Dr. Julius Lemoine built the first crematory in Washington, Pennsylvania. In 1884 the second crematory opened in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and as was true of many of the early crematories, it was owned and operated by a cremation society. I'm sorry.

It's a cremation society. Yeah, sure. So just like the masonry of burning people? So there was a society for cremating. Other forces behind... Okay, that's it? Yeah, so it's like a group that you would like all pitch in to buy so you could all be burned. Like a timeshare? Yeah, cremation share. Sure. Other forces behind early crematory openings were Protestant clergy who desired to reform burial practices and the medical profession concerned with health conditions around early cemeteries. So they were worried about the spread of disease. Which makes a lot of sense as we've learned.

Crematories soon sprang up in Buffalo, New York, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Detroit and Los Angeles. By 1900 there were already 20 crematories open or in operation and by the time that Dr. Hugo Erickson founded the Cremation Association of America in 1913 there were 52 operating in North America and over 10,000 cremations took place that year. So we're burning them up. Yeah. In the late 50s only 10% of the dead in America were cremated. In 1975 the name was changed to the Cremation Association of North America to be more indicative of the membership composition of the United States and Canada. So they

were like, hey, Mexico? They never wanted to get fried up in Canada so they brought it all. At the time there were over 425 crematories and 150,000 cremations a year. That's in 1975. By the 80s people were searching for less expensive ways to get rid of a loved one's corpse and the number of people going for cremation was around 40%. Wow. That's trickle down economics. Hey Reagan. Thanks girl. Funeral parlors began scrambling to get in on the action of burning up people up. Cremation is especially more popular in the western United States, part of which is due to demographic factors. Which are it's

hipper? I think yeah, maybe. Fuck you mom, I'm gonna get burned. There's less large families as opposed to on the east coast where you'd have more generational, like you would have a family plot or whatever. Sure. Here you go. I would like to be buried in your family's plot. Well, the way that we're gonna we're gonna handle you is when you die we're gonna drag you behind a pickup truck across the United States. Not what I'm asking for. Tied, just tied to the back. Come see Gary. Quote, family's no longer stay in the old hometown the way they used to. Having the traditional family plot in a hometown cemetery just

doesn't make sense for people who might never be there anyway, said John Slocum, executive director of the non-profit funeral consumers alliance. I just love that there's all these groups. And since cremation is usually cheaper than burial, it's an attractive prospect for the budget conscious. So burning people was in and the lambs wanted a big part of the dead, right? A very aggressive market came about, said John W. Gill, executive officer of California's Cemetery Board. This was especially true. This was especially true in Southern California where price competitiveness in low-cost cremation

was fierce. I don't like that. Why? Because that just means that, you know, it's it's sort of like a lacy surgery. Yeah. You want to go to like a good guy to give you a good lacy surgery, but the second lacy becomes popular, you're gonna find a bunch of shady people who are like in my neighborhood are like, I can fix your eyes. I don't know. I don't know why you would even think that. I could burn you for a hundred. What's wrong with that? Come on down. I'll burn you up for $35. On July 1st, 1984, David, David's the youngest, the 32-year-old, leased the Pasadena crematorium from his mom operating the business as his own.

Coastal cremations incorporated of which David sconce. We were just real comfortable throwing it out there. We have gotten less comfortable with like calling shit what it is. Now we're like it's the rainbow association when it just hurts children. Better than burning them up. Yeah. Yeah. Burning them up, Inc. Crispy Pete. Oh my god. Coastal cremations incorporated 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. So sorry. So they're like the big corp. They'll just take the bodies, they'll

cremate them, and then they'll give you the ashes. Yeah. Right. They burn it up, and then they hit the wall of burning people. Yeah, the McDonald's burning people, yeah. Sure. In addition, there was no extra charge for picking up a body and returning the ashes. The mortuaries in turn would charge customers anywhere from $265 to $1,000 for cremation services. So that's a pretty big markup. To many who knew him, David sconce was the model youth, a one-time defensive back for his father at Azusa Pacific with a surfer's wave of blonde hair. But he had been in some trouble, notably when he admitted to police that

he had broken into the house of a girlfriend's parents when she refused to go out with him anymore. 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. Wait. Okay, so he broke. What a baller move, man. What do you say? He certainly does. You won't go out with me? Well, fuck you. I'm going to break your parents up, steal their stereo, and then act out cool. And I'm going to fucking pray with your ass. I'm going to get upping your shit and pray. Oh, man. You've heard it a million times. The way to

start stealing parents stereo. Soon the two ovens at the family crematory in Altadena, the oldest cremation furnaces west of the Mississippi, were running 16 to 18 hours a day. The Altadena is like three miles from my house. Yeah. In David's first year in the operation, cremations went up nearly 1000% from 194 to 1675. They doubled and redoubled reaching 8173 in 1985. As a fleet of vans, station wagons, and trucks fanned out, picking up corpses from all over Southern California. What? It's so weird. What do you mean it's weird? It's just weird. Dude. I'm not saying we do things right now. Look. And you are a victim of the

custom a little bit, right? But that's weird. It's not like a guy found a business that would work. Yeah, but it's like a drive through. It's supplied demand. It's gross. David Scott's was rolling it. He flashed wads of money and cruised around in a candy apple red Mercedes Benz and a white Corvette with a personalized license plate that displays his hilarious sense of humor. No. I space BRN space for you. It read. Oh my God. A red car. Like a lot of people are probably like that has to be the devil driving. I burnt for you for you. Fuck. He attended hockey games with a bunch of big X football players that he called his

boys sconces boys listened to his boasts ran as errands and roughed up his enemies. David sconce used his to test his strength according to one former employee by heaving bodies in their cardboard boxes around the mortuary like bags of grain. Oh God. What? What do you mean? What? He's he's showing off how strong he is. Oh my God. This is a bit. A businessman recalled that David looked him up and down one day and declared him a one-hander. That meant David wouldn't even need two hands to sling his small body into the oven. Oh my God. So he's just like I mean this is a drive-thru. This is fast. Yeah. Fast burn. Yeah. It's

fast. But he's also taking weird. You know you're a little too inside your business. Well, it's also apparently it's also a one-hander. Apparently. Oh, I'm sorry. You don't know what that means. That means that I could throw you into the oven to burn you with one hand. Shrimp. Well, he also uses the he also uses the places of workout sort of area. Oh, cool. Yeah. 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. He spread rumors that the sconces were cremating more than one body at a time according to Richard Gray who runs aftercare funeral services in Van Nuys aftercare. The rumor began

spreading through the industry that the sconce family were not burning bodies individually as required by law. Ron haste. Ron haste editor of a newsletter called mortuary management. Hello. Please hold. I just love. Hey, the new episode of mortuary management's here. Mortuary management. Kelly finally leaves. The editor asked Lorian sconce to state in writing in 1984 that her cremations were done individually. David sconce became angry and said he was going to have his boys pay the editor a visit. Oh boy. Hasten his roommate were then attacked by David Edwards a former Pierce College football player and another man posing as

policeman who threw quote ammonia vinegar and jalapeno juice and anything else we could put together in their eyes. I mean, you'd be clear with your plan. We've got jalapeno juice and ammonia sconce then offered Edwards the same amount to beat up waters for spreading the rumors. Edwards and associate took cash from waters but never beat him up because too many police cars were near his alpha society crematory in Burbank the day they went by. Sure. Then on February 12th 1985 Tim Waters was bloodied by Danny Galambos a 245 pound ex football player who carried business cards reading Big Men Unlimited.

I'm hoping there was nothing else on them. Like what the joker with the behind. Nice little fuck you two months later after spending Easter ill in bed at his mother's house in Camarillo waters died of a heart attack. A state investigator in Southern California was suspicious of the sconce crematory and began trying to find out how the cremations were being done. But he was denied entrance to the Altadena facility because he did not have a search warrant. Are you cool with that. Are you cool with that. No. No. OK. Well if you're interested as to what I'm thinking there's no fucking way that they're

burning one body at a time. What shady as fuck. Has lost himself. What lost himself. Yes. Has lost himself in the process of thinking that he's like the cool crematorium. He's the cool crematorium guy. He's the quarterback of the burning. He's got a fucking rad vet and a Mercedes and I burn for you. I burn for you baby. For you. People think that it's like I burn for you like I burn for you love wise but it's actually I burn for you like I'm actually burning you up. Oh I can only imagine he was single. I must have just been shredding it up.

Just buying rounds of shots. Yeah. Other funeral homes did not did not. What is. Oh God auto crack. Other funeral homes did not begin to be suspicious even though the low cost high volume operation should have raised many flags. Everyone was pretty pleased with the profit margins and the funeral directors were reassured by the sterling lamb name. But Dr. Thomas Weber owner of the teleface society a pioneer in the field of low cost barrier burial said the deal was too good to be true. If somebody offers you a Ford for 8000

and I'm paying 16000 something's not right. He said this this man makes sense. A former employee reported improper activities at the funeral home and crematorium to the Department of Health on June 9th 1986. The recommendation to investigate was apparently lost in bureaucratic papers. Good. What. It's good. It's good to know that nothing's changed. You still wouldn't be able to get the bottom of that today at all. The department lost it. The thing that means everything. We have so many papers.

The department that approved David's permit to harvest human eyes and tissue for transplants eight days later on June 17th 1986. What. What. Well that's quite a 180. What do you mean by the Cinderella story. Investigate this man to see if he's throwing bodies into more at a time to do what you want with eyes. Take eyes. Get the eye game. Go have fun with the eyes. Get the eye game. You can only imagine what this this dude was playing ping pong with eyes like legal. I'll burn for you baby. Get the eye game baby. I'm in the eye game baby.

I'm a little bit of a good news today. Shit just got real. I'm going to be able to start to harvest some of these eyeballs. Yeah. I don't have to throw them out anymore. Anyway. Anyway. To the bedroom. You want to get it on. I'm burning for you. In October David began cremating bodies in his sparia at Oscars ceramics telling officials that he was making tiles. Wait. Sorry. One more time. In October David began cremating bodies in his sparia at Oscars ceramics telling officials that he was making tiles. Were you about to go on.

That's quite a jump. Well he needed it. He was burning so many bodies he needed a new place to burn tile. We bought a he bought Oscars ceramics. He bought a ceramics place and started burning bodies in the kiln. Don't you like to party for a second there. I thought it was like still a ceramics place as well. Well I mean he bought he bought it. No I don't they weren't making ceramics anymore but he just bought the place that bought the place and then but he lied about it which is not a good way. He lied to officials. He said he was making ceramics tiles.

Yep. Where are these tiles. Oh they're in there. What's that over there. That's Larry. Hey you're not supposed to be in here. Jalapeno juice. Get it in the eyes boys. He installed ovens for what was listed on business permits as a ceramics factory. On the morning of November 23rd 1986 at the crematory employee John Halonen and another worker loaded 38 bodies into two furnaces each measuring 3.5 feet high by 4 feet wide by 8 feet long. That broke the previous record of 18 bodies in one furnace. You're really not finessing the fact that they are now like it's just so not only is it two to

three bodies they're like oh man a new record. What have they fucking broke our record man give a little bit of credit. You know it is a pretty like empty thing if you really think about it like it's just ashes it's really pointless but people should be able to do it with someone's fucking ashes if that's what they want. Well they're getting some ashes. Yeah oh yeah they're getting some yeah. It could but their their loved ones I mean some of their loved ones. Say goodbye to grandma and those 35 strangers who are mixed in with her. Halonen had to break the leg of one body to get it in and that might have blocked up the chimney. The block chimney started a fire that burned down the building. What the fuck.

A body clog. A body clog. Oh my gosh all right. All right I see the problem here. It looks like you got 19 bodies in this one. Yep we're evil. Oh you broke the leg of that one. Yeah you don't want to go in easy so we just shattered his leg. Well that's why the fire started because it clogged. It was a body clogged. And here we are high five and we set a record. Look at how many are in there. His facility destroyed. David Skontz quietly moved the entire operation to Hisperia. Sorry were there no questions about like hey you lied you're just burning. Doesn't look like it. Okay good times. David Skontz quietly moved the entire operation to Hisperia 20 miles north of

San Bernardino in the high desert. The oven ovens ran for two months before a phone call was made. So the place in Altadena burned down putting all the bodies in it so he moved the entire operation out to Hisperia to the ceramics place and then and then so it makes a phone call. What do you mean someone makes a phone call. On January 20th 1987 assistant Hisperia fire chief Will Wentworth listened incredulously as a caller complained that the noxious black smoke smoke pouring from a nondescript building in the desert carried a sickeningly sweet smell of burning flesh. Oh sweet. God. I don't think so. It's a ceramics shop Wentworth replied. Don't tell me they're not burning bodies. I was at the ovens

at Auschwitz the man said. Jesus Christ. Wentworth was still skeptical when he drove out to Oscar ceramics and opened one of the massive brick furnaces. A burning foot fell out. Oh God. Oh just. That's not tile. That is so. That's tile. We're doing foot tiles. You don't prepare yourself to have a burning foot just fall in front of you. No it's weird. It's very weird. I don't know. I got a Holocaust survivor sent a little bullshitty. Oh there's a foot. Yay. That's a hot foot. Hot foot. Hey look out. Scattered around the interior. It's like an athlete's foot commercial. Scattered around the interior. Caked black with the accumulated bodily grime from the brick ovens were trash cans brimming with human ashes and prosthetic

devices. What? Like a arm. Oh just like a glass. Like a fake arm or glass eye body parts. Oh my God. Oh God. It's like the island of misfit toys but with ash. And people. And humans. In the rear of the funeral home was the so-called Ash Palace where employees Jim Dame testified that he sifted ashes trucked in from the crematory in big barrels. Jerry Sconce told him to put in three and a half to five pounds of ash if the deceased was a female and five to seven pounds for a male. What is the point of even using human ash? You can tell it doesn't seem human ash in regular ash. All right. He said he never put the ashes from just one body in the urns that were returned to families. Yeah. No it's like it's awful. No it's fine. I mean it's just so

bullshit. You know what a man finds a way to make business more efficient and everyone gets upset with them but this is. Oh I'm sorry Dave. Yeah I'm sorry we're coming down hard on this guy. Oh yeah well a guy finally made the trains run on time and you're all mad at him. Yeah. Yeah. By the time of the hisperia raid the Sconces had built a business empire collecting human remains from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Up to one hundred bodies would lie in the mortuary's coal waiting room transportation to the crematory where David used a wood two by four to pack them into wood ovens like cordwood. What difference does it make? A witness recalled David Sconce saying they're dead. Oh Jesus. Then why not tell everyone David. And they weren't just

profiting from the burning of bodies. The family may the family business may have once been a respected mortuary but now it was a cut rate body factory where the dead were mined like ore deposits. Oh. Eyes brains and gold filled teeth were sold without the knowledge of relatives. Oh my god. While workers competed to see who could stuff the most bodies into the ovens. Oh my god this it's like Oompa Loompa's gone. I mean no one's being killed. Well they're all dead. Still you want to know. No look. I'm not I can't. I mean there's just you can't take someone's brain. Well you can. I mean you can but ethically you shouldn't if you're. Well I mean what are ethics. Dude what. Well family family friends tried to put all the blame on David Sconce employees also

implicated his parents in the operation of the tissue bank. Hearts lungs brains eyes and corneas were taken from corpses and sold through a company called Coaster Coastal International Eye and Tissue Bank. I mean we really got to get back to the the honest names. Very clear what they do. Which was located next door to the Lamfueler home. They would just feel like it was like takeout. Did anyone put two and two together. Oh god. I mean imagine seeing those two next to each other and be like well let's get out of here. Hey you know what maybe we shouldn't bring mom to this one. Yeah. Because next door it says a stolen tissue brokers. Yeah let's get some Kleenex.

The bank in a three month period sold 136 brains 145 hearts and 100 lungs to a North Carolina firm supplying organs for research to medical schools just like the old days. Yeah it is it's it's somehow it's it's like the 1980s version. A handwriting expert hired by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said Laurie and Sconce had signed the names of survivors on some of the forms permitting organ removal. It is a felony to take organs without permission. In one case survivors were prevented from viewing their loved one's body because the eyes had already been taken. Oh god. Oh my god. How do you explain that? You don't I mean you don't you close the eyes or I mean I don't know what you do. What are your fucking options? You tell the family they can't

see the fucker. Can't see it there's the problem with the face. Yeah. While operating the funeral home Jerry Sconce served as a Bible school football coach and his wife was the church organist and David was making five thousand to six thousand dollars a month pulling gold teeth and selling them selling them to a Glendora jeweler. He would pry open the mouse with a screwdriver and then use pliers to pull out gold filled teeth in a bone shattering operation. He had two nicknames for this process. I don't like either of them. Popping chops. Oh god. And making the pliers sing. They're both I hate them both for different reasons but I think popping chop is the worst. Okay. Just because that's kind of like hey the old popping

chop. This practice led to the employees giving their boss the nickname little Hitler. I mean it's just a fun work environment. You know they're they're calling they're calling the boss little Hitler for taking out gold while they're packing bodies into a oven and they're calling him little Hitler. I'll tell you if there's one thing they got right it's nicknames. Nailed it. I mean as investigators began looking into all aspects of David Sconce they came across his group of large boys. David Edwards would plead guilty to beating the editor Haas testifying that David Sconce had paid him seven to eight hundred dollars to do so. Gallambos also pleaded guilty to assaulting mortician Tim Waters. He testified that David Sconce told him to make it look like a robbery

so he also stole Waters jewelry. Edwards then revealed more about Tim Waters. His heart attack had not actually been a heart attack. Edwards said Sconce told him he arranged to have Waters called the way to answer a phone at a restaurant then walked past the table and slipped poison into his water glass. Waters body was exhumed whereupon the corner discovered Waters had been poisoned by Oleander. Waters Waters has been poisoned. Waters Waters was was bad Waters. And he poisoned any water if it's his. Poisoned Waters. You see. You see. I can't. Yeah I got it. David Sconce was facing charges on 69 criminal counts for what including unlawful removal of body parts from human remains. Hey that's a big one. Multiple cremation of human remains

and assault on arrival morticians stealing dental gold and commingling human remains as well as the murder of Tim Waters. Jesus he really had a good bracket. He had a fucking run. Man the stress that dude must have been under. Oh my god could you imagine killing people just so you can keep cremating people. He was the scarface of bodies. Yeah just because you're stacking teeth up counting fucking money being brash as fuck but then you know the FBI's breathing down your neck like the end of Goodfellas. And then you take it out to his spariot and get away from. Yeah then you get away from the hot and the heat. And then you get in the brain game. You throw your hat in the brain and heart ring. I want to get out of the brain game but I can't. Then you hear some of your buddies

are starting to cave and you're like oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh my god this whole thing might collapse. Then you try to stop selling brains and the brain the brain guy is like you can't get out now. Yeah you get out and I'll tell everybody you've been selling brains. Don't give me that fucking brain I'm gonna fucking kill you. Oh shit I gotta get more brains. You keep the brains coming or I take your brain. You understand what I'm talking about sconce. I gotta take my goddamn brain. That's where the evil is. Uh Tsuru Shoeitani's mother was cremated in November 1986 with 37 strangers. Shoeitani's last wish was to be returned to Japan so their ashes could be honored in three separate locations. Nishi Hongani temple in oh I probably should say that right. Nishi Honganji

temple in Kyoto the family altar in her son's home in Wakayama city and the nearby family plot where her husband is buried so that's why she wanted to have all her ashes cremated. But during the hundred day ritual that accompanies a Buddhist burial Nuno felt compelled to tell her family in Japan that her mother's ashes may have been mingled with others. The Nishi Honganji temple refused to accept the remains and the burial ritual was canceled. Not surprised. A copper urn now sits in a relative's home and no one knows what to do with it. Well I think we can do better than that. I don't think my mother will ever be at rest she said. Jesus well I mean I okay. Ed Shane and his family used to joke about what might be buried under the house they rented in

Glendora. The house was formally rented by David Scantz. Oh boy. Oh god. But the joke stopped being funny when Shane who was replacing a screen over a crawl space entry and he spotted human remains. Oh my god. There he found a pile of charred bones teeth and prosthetic devices. Oh my god. Oh god. We have no idea what else is in the yard Shane said. We're moving out of here as soon as we can. Jesus. Jesus. Oh it's terrible. Scantz had had the crawl space finding bones. That's pretty much up there with nightmares. Scantz had had the front and backyards bulldozed before moving out according to Shane. Yeah. If a guy's moving out of a house that he's renting and he's bulldozing yards. Yeah. You call the police. He's not just being like literally for

the next tenant. Who bulldozes the yards in a house they were renting. Yeah. Yeah. Before they leave. I mean I just want the next guy to have a nice lawn. Pay it forward for the deal you know. Just doing my part. You know what this is. Anyway don't ever dig here. I mean look a lot of people will clean the house top to bottom. I like to bulldoze the yard. Look I'm just looking to get the security deposit back so I'm just going to bulldoze the yard. Glendora police filled two 20 by 11 inch boxes with charred dentures dental bridges skull bones and bombing tools heart pacemaker wires and at least two dozen prosthetic devices and a soft drink can containing several teeth. What's under your house.

Not a soft drink full of teeth below said police also found pieces of brick and fiberglass insulation that appear to have been part of a kiln or crematory police were unable to identify any of the remains or ascertain how many bodies were involved but these dental records to help with identification. Scotsman moved out in early 1987 police then learned that David had also attempted to slit the murder of his grandparents Lawrence and Lucille lamb Jesus Bristol the manager is very evil he's rolling he's fucking going for it you know here's the thing if you're going to get into a business fucking jump in kill your grandparents I mean make it all happen hey man like we like we always say if you're going to get into business think about killing your

grandparents well what are you gonna do okay so the other option is the other option is to half acid yeah the other option is to not drive a cherry red Mercedes that says I burn for you and be a normal person Bristol the manager of the very illegal tissue bank revealed that scots told him in December 1986 that he wanted to poison his grandparents so that his mother would inherit the funeral home Bristol said that scots asked him five or six times times for an untraceable poison that could be put in his grandparents water cooler hey uh hey buddy you see the game last night you see the game last night can I get some poison hey um boy I can't believe they kicked that field goal last minute something yeah all right breaker they're gonna

miss the playoffs because yeah it looks like it yeah hey um what's an untraceable poison to kill my grandparents with so I'm sorry crazy game with brackets are shaping up yep I need to kill my grandparents through their water cooler okay I have to take this brain over to the brain pile David scott's his mother and his father were all charged together for dozens of crimes throughout the hearing the sconces sat together sometimes talking to those in the court with and smiling at witnesses as they recounted their experiences at the lamb funeral home but after the hearing the family went their separate ways david's parents said they knew nothing of their son's crimes at the business and their trials were separated david scott's complained in jail that the case

against him was trumped up by prosecutors and funeral industry bigwigs quote people with big places expensive caskets who want to quash innovators yeah innovators yep it's innovators you gotta be you gotta admit he's an innovator in the industry he's a big innovator he's he's making an innovate yeah no he's an innovator one at a time 19 at a time guys making changes making changes making outside of the box make it burn using kilns yeah you see yeah right yep treating people like clay right sure cool he denounced his industry as the quote most infighting backbiting rumor spreading lecherous treacherous people you ever want to meet in your life right 20 of them david was then charged with plotting to kill the prosecuting

attorney walt louis david conceded that he wrote louis will die on the wall of the jail but insisted it was part of a larger message that was erased by jail snitches yeah the full message was laurence will die of aids you know you got a good defense when you have to say that is that where you should start you should definitely start with like no it was just that there was this sale and i knew laurence wanted a lazy boy and i saw these coupons and i was like laurence will die when he sees these prizes of aids no it was of aids see i'm a good guy i'm a good guy come on you guys uh he said it quote it was stupid but it was funny sure that's what he said yeah okay that was his defense yeah it was stupid but it was funny

but in a come on uh uh somebody raised a punch come on guys it was all set up in there scott's blood guilty and was sentenced in 1989 to a five-year prison term for mutilating corpses conducting mass cremations at a ceramics kiln and hiring thugs to rough up three competing morticians the charge of plotting to kill the prosecutor was dropped three years later a passing in the superior court jury found there was insufficient evidence to prove the misdemeanor counts against laurence and jerry the jury also acquitted laurence of conspiring to steal and sell body parts to a tissue bank the panel voted 11 to 1 to acquit jerry scott's of the same charge and judge william masterson declared a mistrial on the count jurors deadlocked on six felony counts

that laurence forged signatures on organ donor consent forms and unlawfully moved removed body parts so they were guilty too fuck yeah yeah in 1992 the civil suit against all the owners of the lamb funeral home was settled wednesday for 15.4 million i didn't have to put the wednesday part in there but now but it's nice to know yeah that happened on it happened on a wednesday hump day yeah relatives of more than 5000 deceased people shared in the agreement approved by the court but that's so i mean that that's really nothing right i mean that's like no it's shit yeah they didn't get anything and and then how much money does the family even have at that point who knows a price tag i'm like ruining the rest of us all yeah prosecutors filed two new charges

against david sconce accusing of soliciting the murder of ellie estifon owner of the cremation society of california and a bad sense of humor when it comes to aids estifon said that before he took over the business in 1986 sconce had been negotiating for it estifon never had any run-ins with david sconce but on the night the business was transferred to him several people broke into the offices the previous owner who lived on the premises drove them off by shouting that he had a gun i i just want to point out that there's a guy living in a the cremation society of california cool yeah this is a guy just living in there yeah so do you want to go to your place or my place i have roommates uh my place your place your place my place has a big your place your place

my place has a big offense you're playing uh do you like to smell it's 40 if you're breaking legs you like to smell the dead i mean um do you want a hair lamp we can start a fire if you want how much is your brain way hey can i take your eyes the judge who dismissed the case recommended the that prosecutors appeal after a couple of rounds of appeals sconce ended up pleading guilty to murder conspiracy in 1997 and was placed on lifetime probation oh my god a very unusual sentence in california a very unusual sentence anywhere lifetime probation lifetime probation that sounds like a movie eight years after the discovery of the bodies lorraine lorian and jerry were again tried and convicted on april 12th 1995 of 11 charges okay jerry sconce 60 and lorian

lamp sconce 57 were each sentenced to three years and eight months in prison so they got more that is all they got three months yeah but they still got more than lifetime probation i mean that's true well that's ridiculous as a result of the case the california legislature passed a bill authorizing inspection of crematories on demand good yeah yeah that makes sense that makes fucking sense yeah yeah jesus lorian sconce's two brothers kirke and bruce lamb attempted to restore the business hey buddy find a new racket your name ain't no good here no more okay sorry they ruined it for the family his nickname was little hitler sorry kirke and bruce lamb other hitlers chasing their names they weren't like um i've been

thinking about going into like religion or like things like that hitler h i t l e r i just can't get that the burning party business i love it so it's just so fun i like to work with the dead i'm sorry my brother was bad kirke and bruce lamb attempted to restore the business to its original purpose as a quiet family funeral home they did not believe all of the accusations but admitted that there was too much evidence to deny that something went very wrong yeah sure the lamb brothers agreed to surrender their funeral homes current license but applied for another one and received a license to operate a new business on east orange grove boulevard under a new name the pasadena funeral home oh boy because i know what you're talking about i think well

they either ran the business for a while and sold it or they never started a new one but i can't find their name i couldn't find any records of a pasadena funeral home but there is an avalon pasadena funeral home owned by somebody else so maybe they sold it but either way oh god i just feel like the state even though their brothers are the guy like how about the family not working the business yeah no look how about we wrap it up it's like jeb he's george w's brother yep i'm sorry yeah you gotta just take a pass i'm sorry but these guys are like god damn but we gotta restore our name and the dead business come on man people love the way we used to handle the dead yeah we used to be so good man people love they'd be like you got so

good with dead people they're cool the little shirts i love how you burned my mom david sconce was hauled back into court in 2002 for a unspecified probation violation he burned the body judge joseph d venon told him quote if you come back before me on a violation of probation i will sentence you to life in prison okay in 2012 oh boy david stole a rifle from a neighbor and tried to pawn it he was sentenced to five years probation in montana california saw his extradition and judge shubin made good on the previous judge's promise sconce was given life in prison for a gun charge 15 years after being caught he oj did burning yeah he did he did fucking oj he oj did yep beat the big one and then let the little one take him down yeah

now he's in now he's in fucking prison forever for life good what's fucking idiot i mean look no you look what i got nothing i mean it's it's ingenuity your guy not ingenuity the guy the guy saw a hole what and he he took advantage of a situation that nobody else was yeah sure there here's the thing though what is the thing like i get like i don't care about i don't care what happens to my body after i'm dead i'm gonna take you up on that i'm i actually i'm seriously consider considering how to put in a body farm what i want what i want to be stuffed i want to be stuffed and i want to have my six catchphrases put on my chest like a key ring like a spencer's gift key ring with movie quotes you know just stuff like oh pass the peas you know i've talked about

this on the podcast before but that's just what i that's but and then i want to be left in a house for future generations to have to live with me okay let me say this sure if my grandfather when he died we haven't cremated sure but if we found out that he had been mixing with a bunch of people i would be like you know whatever i would literally be like whatever and it doesn't matter because he's dead he's but he's already fucking dead and what he it doesn't fucking matter it's not like when you oh we had to scatter his ashes in the well if he's fucking dead it doesn't matter where you fucking throw his ashes yeah it's it's irrelevant but so but i understand that people have a religious i wouldn't care i wouldn't rub me too much the wrong way but again

you know it's wrong yeah it's morally i think we can all agree it's wrong at the same time it's cute it's cute it's kind of cool well that is super fucking fucked up well you are welcome yeah fuck this um thank you you've been listening to fuck this and uh we'll be back with more bodies