Bizarre Case of Wayward Ashes May Reach Trial

It was a putrid smell that seemed to permeate the night air that first aroused suspicions about the corrugated steel building.

The building, in the high desert city of Hesperia about 60 miles northeast of Los Angeles, housed a company called Oscar’s Ceramics, which was supposedly producing panels for NASA’s space station project.

But what investigators discovered in January, 1987, when they entered the building were several 30-gallon cans filled with human ash and bone, along with dozens of partially cremated bodies “loaded like cordwood” inside two kilns, Hesperia Assistant Fire Chief Will Wentworth said.

Ruling Scheduled

So began a bizarre investigation that led to a total of 68 charges against the operators of the Lamb Funeral Home in Pasadena, including illegally removing body parts, stealing dental gold, conducting mass cremations and commingling human remains. One of the operators, David Wayne Sconce, has also been charged with soliciting the murder of his grandparents, who own the funeral home, and the prosecutor handling the case.

After a marathon eight-month preliminary hearing, Pasadena Municipal Judge Victor H. Person is scheduled to rule Monday on whether Sconce and his parents, Laurieanne Lamb Sconce and Jerry Wayne Sconce, should face trial in Superior Court for alleged illegal activities at the funeral home and at the makeshift crematorium in Hesperia.

The preliminary hearing, the longest in the history of Pasadena Municipal Court, involved 161 pieces of evidence and 99 witnesses.

Defense attorneys have argued that the Sconces, who have pleaded innocent to all charges, have done nothing wrong.

They have presented documents, signed by clients, that contained clauses authorizing the removal of body parts. Some witnesses also testified that the Sconces were not involved in multiple cremations or commingling remains.

Grisly Portrait

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Walter H. Lewis has presented a starkly contrasting view through 92 prosecution witnesses who have painted a sometimes grisly portrait of a family that allegedly committed a series of “gruesome and horrible” crimes.

“It was definitely a family affair,” Lewis said. “To sum up their attitude: No one is ever going to know; they’re dead people.”

Families whose relatives were cremated by the Sconces say the effect of the allegations has been devastating.

Many, including Lucy Nuno of Pasadena, say the suspicion of wrongdoing alone has created a lifetime’s worth of grief.

“The more you hear, the more it stirs you up,” she said last week. “I don’t know what I could have done to avoid this.”

Last Wish

The body of her mother, Tsuru Shiotani, was cremated in November. Shiotani’s last wish was to be returned to Japan so that her ashes could be honored in three separate locations: 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.

But during the 100-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.

A copper urn now sits in a relative’s home, and no one knows what to do with it, Nuno said.

“I don’t think my mother will ever be at rest,” she said.

Doubts about the Sconces’ operation have also plagued Dorothy Kivel, 73, of San Gabriel, who has refused to pick up her husband’s remains.

Body Being Stored

She was told in January, 1987, that the body of her husband, Martin, was cremated a week after he died in January. But several weeks later, she received a letter stating that his body had not been cremated and was being stored at the Lamb Funeral Home in Pasadena. In April, she was informed that her husband’s body had been cremated in February and that his ashes were waiting for her.

“I don’t think I would really know if I got his ashes,” she said. “I’ve just given up altogether.”

Until the furor arose over the cremations, the Lamb Funeral Home, one of the oldest funeral businesses in Pasadena, had also been one of the most respected. It has been in Laurieanne Lamb Sconce’s family for four generations.

“The image was of proper, Christian, churchgoing business people,” Lewis said.

The funeral home cremated more than 8,000 bodies in 1986--about three times as many as any other funeral home in the state, according to John Gill, executive officer of the state Cemetery Board.

High Number

Gill said the board had been suspicious of the Sconces because of the unusually high number of cremations. The suspicions grew after the funeral home’s crematorium in Altadena burned in November, 1986, but the cremations continued.

The board did not know that the Sconces had begun cremating bodies in Hesperia until the Fire Department entered Oscar’s Ceramics.

“All of a sudden, everything hit the fan,” said Wentworth.

At first, the investigation focused on mass cremations and commingling of human remains, although those allegations now make up only four of the 68 charges against the Sconces.

The prosecution relied on the testimony of several former employees who said mass cremations occurred regularly at the Hesperia and Altadena crematoria. State law requires that cremations be conducted on only one body at a time.

Trash Cans

Jim Dame, who transported bodies and sifted ash for the funeral home, said during the preliminary hearing that from six to 15 bodies were routinely cremated at one time and the ashes later put into large trash cans.

Steve Strunk, another former employee, testified that the ashes were sifted to remove bone fragments in a back room that became known as the “Ash Palace” and randomly packaged to be returned to relatives.

Employees were not charged because of the small role they played and because their testimony was needed to build the case against the Sconces, Lewis said.

Defense attorney Thomas Nishi, who represents Jerry Sconce, said the testimony of Strunk and Dame had been disputed by other employees and business acquaintances of the Sconces.

Saw No Evidence

Lucy Grand, a secretary at the Lamb Funeral Home, and Dorothy Ann Grow and Richard Gray, funeral directors who did business with the Sconces, testified that they had never seen evidence that mass cremations or commingling of remains occurred.

Most of the charges against the Sconces involve allegations that bodies were often harvested for dental gold and body parts before cremation.

Lee Packard, a former employee, said during the hearing that David Sconce pried mouths open with a screwdriver and used pliers to pull out gold-filled teeth in a process Sconce called “popping chops.”

Lewis said the gold was sold to a company in Glendora. A former employee, Dorothy Stegman Orlich, a bookkeeper, testified that Sconce told her he made $5,000 to $6,000 a month from the gold.

Firm Next Door

Hearts, lungs, brains, eyes and corneas also were taken from corpses and sold through a company called Coastal International Eye and Tissue Bank, which was located next door to the Lamb Funeral Home and operated by the Sconces, Lewis said.

The harvesting of body parts for scientific purposes is legal, provided the next of kin has knowingly agreed.

But many relatives testified that they did not know the routine cremation consent forms they signed authorized the removal of body parts. They said they would not have signed if they had known.

The former manager of the tissue bank, George Bristol, testified that no tissue was taken unless he had received a signed consent form.

Attorney Roger Diamond, who represents David Sconce, said the Sconces thought the forms they used were legal because they had been approved by an attorney.

Lewis said the Sconces received at least $29,000 from the sale of body parts in 1986 and 1987. One $5,493 order mailed in October, 1986, to a biological supply company in North Carolina included 24 brains, 24 hearts and 20 lungs.

Held Without Bail

The prosecution has focused much of its efforts on David Sconce, who has been held without bail in Los Angeles County Jail since June. If convicted of all counts, he faces a maximum sentence of 11 years in prison.

Sconce’s parents have been free on $5,000 bail. If convicted, they face a maximum sentence of eight years in prison.

David Sconce’s bail was originally set at $500,000 but was revoked in December at Lewis’ request because of what he called Sconce’s history of “threats, intimidation, manipulation and retaliation.”

Lewis cited Sconce’s conviction in 1976 for burglarizing a house owned by the parents of a former girlfriend and his alleged role in the beating of two competing morticians in 1984 and another in 1985.

Sconce is facing charges of assault in connection with those beatings, which are included in the 68 counts covered in the preliminary hearing.

Poison Sought

The hearing also dealt with Sconce’s alleged attempts to solicit the murder of his grandparents, Lawrence and Lucille Lamb, and Lewis, the prosecutor in the case.

Bristol, the manager of the tissue bank, testified that Sconce told him in December, 1986, that he wanted to poison his grandparents so that his mother would inherit the funeral home.

Bristol testified that Sconce asked him five or six times for an untraceable poison that could be put in his grandparents’ water cooler.

David Edwards, another former employee, and Danny Galambos, a friend of Sconce’s, testified that they were asked if they knew anyone willing to kill his grandparents.

The plan was never carried out, but the prosecution claims that Sconce hatched a new plan after his arrest, this time to murder Lewis.

Mother’s Health

According to testimony from several inmates at the jail, Sconce blamed Lewis for his mother’s poor health and wanted Lewis eliminated.

Diamond said Sconce has denied making any of those statements. “Even if he did, it was just a lot of hot air,” Diamond said.

Throughout the hearing, the Sconces sat together, sometimes talking to those in the court and smiling at witnesses as they recounted their experiences at the Lamb Funeral Home.

The Lamb Funeral Home is still operating, but Coastal International Eye and Tissue Bank has been closed. The elder Sconces have moved to Arizona and returned for the hearing. The building in Hesperia where the cremations took place has been sold and now houses a machine shop.

“This has wiped them out,” Diamond said of the Sconces. “They’ve been devastated by the whole thing.”

Focus on Memories

Diamond said he sympathizes with those whose relatives were cremated and now find themselves swept up in the emotional case. But he blames the news media and the prosecutor’s office for stirring up the issue and creating grief.

He said the relatives should focus on memories of their loved ones and put their doubts behind them.

But Kivel and others said forgetting has not been easy.

Last June, in an interview with The Times, Kivel said that perhaps the passage of time would heal her wounds.

Now, nearly 11 months later, she said she is haunted by the circumstances of her husband’s cremation.

“They say time heals all wounds,” she said. “It doesn’t and probably never will.”