Mortician sentenced in burial plots

When the casket that was supposed to hold the earthly remains of Jim Davis was finally lowered into the ground, the only thing missing was the late Mr. Davis.

The coffin had been weighed down to simulate the approximate heft of a corpse. And Jim Davis was not inside the box.

Federal prosecutors said the phony funeral was among the inventive tricks that Jean Crump — a onetime Long Beach mortician — used to loot insurance companies out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. On Tuesday, she was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison.

Crump was a skilled creator of fictional death and authorities said that by the time she was arrested she had managed to pull off some of the most elaborate life insurance scams in Los Angeles’ recent history, including the cremation of a woman who had actually died years earlier in Arkansas.

When two insurance companies became suspicious about whether Mr. Davis really was resting in peace, Crump exhumed the weighted casket and in an effort to throw off workers at the crematorium where it was headed, inserted a mannequin and cow bones , according to court papers

Then Crump and several associates reported the cremation to the county, saying the remains had been scattered at sea. They even asked a physician to create a death certificate — fatal heart attack

“I have never seen a fraud quite like this one before,” Special Assistant U.S. Atty. Grant Gelberg said before Crump was sentenced to federal prison by U.S. District Judge William D. Keller. In all, Crump was convicted on seven counts of mail fraud and fraud.

Crump and her alleged accomplices had sought as much as $1.2 million from three insurance companies and had netted about $315,000 before authorities unraveled the scheme. The money sought from the insurance companies was for funeral expenses and life insurance policies that Crump and others had taken out on Davis and the Arkansas woman.

Keller on Tuesday ordered Crump to pay $315,000 restitution and serve an additional year on supervised release after completing her prison sentence. The judge and prosecutors said Crump showed little remorse.

In April 2009, federal prosecutors charged Crump and Faye Shilling, 64, with bilking the insurance companies with fake deaths. Shilling, a phlebotomist, was sentenced last year to serving two years in prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud.

Prosecutors say Crump and her accomplices also faked the cremation of a Laura Urich, who had died years before in Arkansas, and collected $5,000 in funeral expenses and $50,000 in insurance death benefits through two purported beneficiaries, according to court records.

Her fake bills includes a limousine, body refrigeration and a casket.

The scheme ran until 2007, when a doctor they recruited to become part of the scheme agreed instead to help the FBI. The physician had already been arrested in a separate prescription drug case. The FBI recorded the 2006 meeting in an Inglewood restaurant between him and Shilling.

Two other women, Lydia Eileen Pearce, 37, who owned Steward-Pearce Mortuary in Long Beach, and notary Barbara Lynn, 54, of Los Angeles have pleaded guilty in connection with the alleged scam, according to prosecutors. Lynn received probation.

FBI officials say Pearce and Crump brought the mortuary skills, while Lynn provided the official seal on documents and Shilling knew the ins and outs of insurance claims.

During Crump’s trial, a woman given immunity by prosecutors said she pretended to be Davis’ niece and caretaker so they could collect on a life insurance policy for him.

richard.winton@latimes.com