The Mortician (2025) s01e01 Episode Script
Episode 1
1
[flames whooshing]
[whooshing intensifies]
[whooshing stops abruptly]
[Darlynn Branton-Stoa]
When you first
are grieving a loss
it's really difficult.
This is a time of saying
goodbye to your loved one
and doing the best
you can for them
because you love them
and they loved you.
My dad and I were very close.
He was my sweet loving daddy
who just, you know,
stroked my head as a child
and loved me so much.
He died in September of 1986.
He was taken
to the Pasadena Crematory
that the Lambs owned.
I trusted that the people
would take care of him.
To have that trust be violated
is unconscionable.
[Darlynn sighs]
I received my dad's ashes
in a white cardboard box
still warm to the touch.
[somber music playing]
When I found out they violated
and desecrated my father
I was shocked,
I was devastated.
It was just horrible.
David Sconce,
he's just a monster.
He's evil.
[lid snapping closed]
People see us everywhere ♪
They think you really care ♪
But myself,
I can't deceive ♪
I know it's only
make-believe ♪
["It's Only Make Believe"
by Glen Campbell playing]
My one and only prayer ♪
Is that someday you'll care ♪
My hopes,
my dreams come true ♪
My one and only you ♪
No one will ever know ♪
How much I love you so ♪
My only prayer will be ♪
Someday you'll care for me
but it's only ♪
Make-believe ♪
[music stops abruptly]
[birdsong]
[Jolena Grande]
Being in funeral service,
we cannot bring our work home.
No one wants to talk
over dinner
about what we did
during the day.
We see people
in their worst situation.
We see them
at the time of death,
and then we see them
beyond death into decomposition.
Many people
don't want that image.
In fact, we do our best
as funeral directors
so that you don't have
to see that image.
We embalm,
we prepare, we dress,
we casket, we cosmetize.
We do everything
we possibly can
so that the client family
can see their loved one
looking as though
there was no pain or trauma.
In today's environment,
we don't talk about death.
And that-- those of us
in funeral service,
day in, day out,
a constant familiarity
with death.
[gentle music playing]
For funeral directors,
trust is foundational.
It's the most prestigious
of responsibilities.
The unfortunate reality is,
like any other occupation,
there are some bad apples.
David Sconce had been a student
here at Cypress College
and had taken
some of the courses
in the Mortuary
Science program.
The scandal
had huge reverberations.
But after all these years,
I don't think
he's ever told his story.
Will you get an interview
with David?
Are you really?
[gasps]
That would be phenomenal.
Wow.
[ominous music playing]
-[music stops]
-[light traffic noise]
[ominous music resumes]
[David Sconce]
Yeah, I'm still in shock
from being out of custody.
I can't believe somebody's
actually taken an interest
in what I've known
for so long.
I'm an open book for you guys.
There ain't--
There's nothing
you can't ask me.
[rhythmic percussion
music playing]
[people chattering]
Okay, going back
to the start of it all.
Back when I was a kid
my grandfather,
Lawrence Lamb,
owned the Lamb Funeral Home
in Pasadena.
[gentle music playing]
The family would spend
all our time at the mortuary.
Even as a little kid
being around death
was not a big deal.
You know, I remember there's no
reason to be afraid of anything.
[Ashley Dunn] The Lamb
Funeral Home was a mortuary
that a lot of people
used and trusted.
And even in
the mortuary business,
they were really
well-known as a place
of family and Christian values.
The Lamb family
did all of our business.
My grandfather
was the first to use them,
and that was in 1946.
If you were anyone,
you used Lambs.
The Lamb family was an extremely
prominent old Pasadena family.
Charles Lamb established
his funeral home in the '20s.
He was a very dignified,
respected member
of the community.
And then, his son,
Lawrence Lamb,
took over the funeral home
around 1950.
I knew Lawrence Lamb.
Great guy.
Well-respected family.
He managed the business
until the 1980s.
His daughter,
Laurieanne Lamb,
and her husband, Jerry Sconce,
ultimately took over
the family business.
And for many years,
they operated it perfectly
until their son, David Sconce,
got involved
in the family business.
[birdsong]
[Elizabeth Creamer]
I've had my grandmother, aunt,
uncle, cousin, father,
they've all used Lamb,
up until--
Mother was the last.
[melancholy music playing]
When my mother died,
I was in-- just in pain.
And of course, I was elected to
go up and visit with the Lambs.
I said, "I would like
my mother's wedding ring
with her."
But the lady I talked to
said, "No, don't do it."
She was very adamant
and she said,
"No, you would be much happier
"and, uh, it will give you
a lot of pleasure
and memories
to keep the ring."
And I thought that was odd.
I think she was trying
to tell me something
that she couldn't tell me.
Later, I realized
she was right.
[birdsong]
[David Geary]
The funeral business,
it's a pretty
lucrative business,
and it can be.
I mean, it's steady.
Everybody dies.
[uneasy music playing]
A funeral is, next to buying
a house or a car,
the biggest expense
that the average American
will-- will ever have.
[Gary Laderman] The questions
around how we dispose
of the dead
are a driving force
in human history.
There's a desire, you know,
if not a compulsion,
to commemorate the dead,
to do right by the dead.
But for many years,
Americans didn't have
a funeral industry.
Family members
and religious leaders
took care of the body
themselves.
It was very intimate.
During the Civil War
the process of embalming
takes hold
and becomes known
as the American way of death.
[uneasy music
continues playing]
There's a great deal
of ambivalence
around the emergence
of these new figures.
The funeral director,
"the mortician,"
"the undertaker."
These entrepreneurs
who wanted to be understood by
the public as professionals.
As people you can trust.
They modeled themselves
off of doctors and lawyers,
and dressed the part.
Traditionally, funeral homes
are family-run businesses.
It's what we think of as kind
of mom-and-pop institutions.
And clearly, it worked.
Funeral service became
a multi-billion-dollar business.
So, you see people
turn to cremation
as a low-cost alternative.
[David Sconce]
My family was heavily invested
in the community in Pasadena.
You know,
my mom's parents were loaded.
My mom, she was in
the 1954 Rose Parade.
My dad played football
in college,
and he was a PE instructor
at a high school.
I dreamed of playing football.
I'd played for a while,
but all my dreams ended
when I stepped in a gopher hole
and tore my knee up.
I was crushed.
One day, my mom and dad
called me and they said,
"Your mother's gonna buy the
mortuary business from her dad.
"She's not gonna pay
any money to do it.
She's just gonna come in there
and run it,"
'cause he was getting older.
I never saw myself working
in the funeral industry.
But, you know, they said,
"Hey, look,
"there's this place,
Cypress College.
Why don't you get
your mortuary certification?"
You know, I wasn't interested
in counseling families.
I already knew how to embalm
from years ago.
Old trade guy taught me
when I was about 12.
But at that time,
cremation was increasing.
And we had this
really old facility
that's run by diesel fuel
and gravity, you know.
It was called
the Pasadena Crematorium.
And it was up there
at, uh, Mountain View.
Mountain View Cemetery
actually was established in 1882
by my great-great-grandfather.
We have our own cemetery
funeral home, and crematory.
The Lamb Funeral Home's
cremation facility
the Pasadena Crematorium,
was located within our grounds.
It was a separate business
right there on our property.
And they only
cremated individuals
that used
the Lamb Funeral Home.
[David Sconce]
Well, when I started
going to the mortuary school,
we got to talking.
It was like, you know,
"Where are you guys from,"
or, "What mortuary
you work for?"
I would just ask him, I'd say,
"Who does your cremations?"
Because most places didn't have
a crematory of their own.
"Oh, we send 'em to Grandview.
Oh, we send 'em
to Angeles Abbey."
They would have to use
their own manpower,
take it to wherever they were
getting the case cremated,
spend the money, and have
to come all the way back
and pick 'em up.
I go, "Well, what do you
get charged?"
"Oh, 250, 300 bucks."
And I thought, "Wow.
"We can cremate
a whole lot more bodies
than we're cremating now."
And I can pick up cremations.
I go, why wouldn't somebody
be interested
in-- in having me do
their work at a lot lower price?
So, that's what
it really started as.
And it took off.
[curious music playing]
[Jay Brown] Around 1982
was when David Sconce
started to offer
their cremation services
out to other funeral homes.
Because David's
crematory operation
was right there
on our property.
I do recall
every time
that crematory was used
you could see a little smoke
when they started it up.
Maybe it was used
two times a week,
maybe three times a week.
And then, we started
to notice
they were doing
10 cremations a week.
It was in those early days
that David Sconce
was the sole owner
and operator.
He was doing all the work.
He stayed pretty much
to his-- his business,
came in, unloaded the cases,
did the cremations, and left.
Seemed like a nice fellow.
[curious music continues]
[David Sconce]
Every day, in my old Dodge van,
you know, I took the seats out,
I'd drive around
picking up dead folks.
I had pickups from probably
40, 50 mortuaries
from Santa Barbara
to San Diego.
[Jay]
When he started the service,
the way he generated business
was he came in and undercut
everybody on their price.
[David Sconce]
My costs for each case--
a case is a body,
a case is a dead body--
would have been
the cardboard container
and whatever diesel fuel
was used
for the actual, uh, cremation.
The boxes were five bucks each,
and the diesel fuel
was probably less than that.
I'd cremate the body
and then return the ash
to the mortuary
or scatter at sea.
I charged 55 bucks.
It was a pretty good deal.
So, there was a reason
my-- my service business grew,
as it grew
pretty much overnight.
I hired these huge guys.
Dave Edwards,
Danny Galambos,
and Andre,
former football players.
You know, I-- I trained 'em
to pick up cases.
Danny Galambos, loudmouth,
unibrow,
big Hungarian bodybuilder.
Danny's dad,
he's an old mob guy
and he ran around with
the Russians out in the valley.
I didn't know until
after I hired him.
But anyway, Dave Edwards
was, uh, much brighter
and-- and soft-spoken.
Andre came in, he was a friend
of one or both of 'em.
[Andre Augustine]
Back in the day,
I was a poor
ex-college football player.
You know, bumming around
at my parents' house,
you know, for six months a year,
and I needed a job.
My friend David Edwards
had started doing deliveries
and pickups for David Sconce
in the crematorium,
and they needed somebody
to drive the truck
three days a week.
So, I started working
for David Sconce.
[dark music playing]
I don't know anything.
I don't know what
I'm supposed to do
other than pick up the bodies.
I almost threw up the first day
driving the truck.
I'm in a 14-foot box truck.
No lift gate, no air.
[lights clicking]
[wheel rattling]
I had to go into the mortuary,
help the guy
push the gurney out
and put the bodies
in the back of the truck.
They had been out
of the cold room for a while,
so there were odors.
There's no doubt about what
it is you're smelling, you know?
The smell is death.
It was real hard.
The whole time, I'm like
just be cool, you know.
Remember how much money
you're making.
And you know, that's how
you get through it, right?
Two-hundred-fifty bucks a day.
Once you got back
to Pasadena
the-- the guys there check
the paperwork,
check the tags,
and then do what they did.
[tense music playing]
I saw some things
that weren't nice.
But that wasn't
really my business.
I just drove the truck,
you know what I'm saying?
[truck engine rumbling]
[David Sconce] The business
was going really good.
I had all these guys
picking up cases to be cremated.
Everything went so quickly.
And then, right in the middle
of all of it,
I met Barbara.
[breeze blowing, flags flapping]
When I first met David?
He was very big.
Big as life.
I was working retail,
and he came in.
The first thing I remember
was his white blonde hair,
and his massive physique,
and the hair on his legs.
I don't know how specific
you want me to get,
but it was-- he was just like
this god to me.
[gentle music playing]
[David Sconce]
I met Barbara at the mall.
And she's selling suits.
You know when you see somebody
and you go in your head, you go,
"Ah, that's the woman
that's gonna have my kids"?
Yeah, I really thought that.
So, I-- I had a
Black American Express card
and I thought, okay,
I'm gonna impress her.
She looks at the card
and she looks at me,
and she looks at the card again.
So, she real quick writes her
phone number down. [laughing]
Then, we started
dating after that.
[Barbara Hunt]
He was funny. He was fun.
He had a beautiful family.
Jerry had been
a football coach.
Laurieanne was very active
in her church.
Laurieanne, and Jerry,
and David,
and his brother Gary
were the all-American family.
They had actually been
in an ad for Maytag.
[laughing]
They were the Maytag family.
I was very infatuated,
fell in love right away.
[camera clicking]
[gentle music playing]
The day of the wedding,
his grandfather,
Lawrence Lamb,
came to me and said,
"Are you sure
you want to marry him?"
And I said, "Yes, I do.
I'm so happy."
And then, Lucile Lamb,
his grandma,
came to me and said
"Are you sure
you wanna do this?"
His father, Jerry, says to me,
"You know, you can back out."
Well, you know,
the day of your wedding,
these are things you really
don't wanna hear.
Three people ask you if this
is exactly what you want to do?
[curious music playing]
I thought it was very strange,
but I didn't let it stop me.
I-- I wanted to marry him.
[ominous music playing]
[crows cawing]
[Johnny Pollerana]
I guess right-hand man
with David Sconce is probably
what you would call me.
I was always with him.
I always did
everything with him,
and I-- I'm the only one
that did cremations,
because, you know,
I was the only one
he trusted to do it.
I was from the north side
of Pasadena.
I was a gang member.
I was getting high,
having fun,
doing stupid stuff,
getting in trouble,
going to jail.
Never thought of working
at a crematorium.
But my cousin got a job
working in the cemetery.
He introduced me to David.
I got hired to work there.
I went with Dave
to the crematorium.
Dave showed me
how it all went.
[metal squeaking]
There was two ovens.
Showed me how to load it,
how to close 'em,
how to put the burners on.
-So, and that was it.
-[flames whooshing]
He paid me cash
for whatever I did,
somewhere around
$6,000 a month,
in-- in my early 20s,
which was a lot of money.
Being my background of not
having the education or skills.
I was taking care of my family
for the first time
in a long time.
So, you know what I mean,
it's like,
whatever he wanted me to do,
I was gonna do.
[crickets chirping]
[dark music playing]
[Jay] As time went on,
David's business
seemed to ramp up steadily.
We never saw
inside the building.
All we saw was the truck
coming and going
at all hours
of the day and night.
It was like an assembly line.
Now, typically, a funeral home,
when they have a cremation case,
will bring the remains
to the crematory
in their own vehicle.
That individual
is placed in a chamber.
And then, the process
of cremation
usually takes about two hours.
[door closes]
Because you have to allow
the chamber to cool down
before you can safely remove
the cremated remains
of one individual and start
cremating another one.
The Pasadena Crematorium
had two chambers.
That would mean they could
properly do four cremations
in an eight-hour day.
You just sort of had
to scratch your head
and try to figure out
how they could be unloading
15 and 20 individuals at a time,
and then come back
five or six hours later
with another 15 or 20.
[rumbling]
They must have
a pretty efficient way
of doing their cremations.
[somber music playing]
David made everything
seem quite normal. Everything.
Uh, he'd put like two
or three bodies in each oven.
At a time.
[chains rattling]
[Andre]
I saw what they're doing.
They would break
a collarbone, or a leg,
or an arm to get it
in a position
to be the most compact
to fit in the oven.
They had this gaff hook
used to move, you know,
-sides of beef around.
-[hook scraping]
You know, hooking the bodies
under the armpit
and dragging 'em in there.
And there was
a running competition
between David Sconce
and Johnny
on who was able to load
the most bodies
in the oven at one time.
Whoever had the record,
they were proud of it.
[Johnny speaking]
So, it wasn't so, like, nasty,
or-- or scary, or spooky,
or ugly, or whatever it was,
it was just part of the job.
[eerie music playing]
This is just disposing
of the-- of the rotten meat.
The soul is gone anyway.
[ominous music playing]
[Andre]
First thing I thought of was,
how-- how do they know
which ashes
to put in which box?
And then I realize, oh, fuck,
they don't know.
[somber music playing]
Sure.
Well, back then, because
of the multiple cremations,
see, I could cremate, uh,
one guy in, like, two hours,
or you could put ten of 'em
in there
and it takes
two and a half hours.
So, what would be
the difference?
There is none.
Hard-hearted as that sounds,
there-- there is none.
[fire crackling]
Anybody in this business
who runs a crematory
can never get all of the ash
out of that oven
before they put another body
in there to be cremated.
[metal scraping]
It's a perforated
kind of a brick floor,
and there's ash in there
from dozens of people.
It's fact,
it's how things are.
So, to me, commingling of ash
is not a big deal.
I don't put any value
in anybody
after they're gone and dead,
as they shouldn't
in when I'm gone and dead.
That's not a person anymore.
Oh, sure.
Yeah, I worried--
I worried about, you know,
because like I said, it was
a misdemeanor at the time.
And I-- I stupidly
justified it by saying,
"Oh, it's a misdemeanor
and nobody
cares about
these people anyway."
Because most of my cases
were scatter at sea.
It would show up
on the disposition permit.
There's no visitors,
there's no viewing, you know?
These relatives didn't want any
part of that person back, okay?
I don't understand
how they have a difficulty
with someone who's gonna go
in the ocean
and be commingled
with the other guy
who goes in the ocean
right after him.
You know, why is that so bad?
It's just not logical,
it doesn't make any sense,
and I've never accepted that.
I just haven't.
You know what?
There's no difference
in anybody's cremated ash.
There's no difference.
It's potash and lime.
That's it.
A little bit of carb--
I mean, it's all the same.
People just gotta be more
in control of their emotions,
because that's not
your loved one anymore,
and it never has been.
Love 'em when they're here.
Period.
[birdsong]
[gentle music playing]
[Juergen Jakob]
Nancy and I lived
in the same apartment building.
We met at the pool, and we just,
uh, we just clicked.
She was very,
very good-hearted.
She taught English
at Beverly Hills High.
And she loved her job.
I was in the restaurant
business.
I worked at Chasen's.
Frank Sinatra,
Sammy Davis Jr.,
Alfred Hitchcock--
everybody
in show business was there.
[gentle music
continues playing]
We both worked very hard,
but we also had
a lot of fun together,
and made the most of the short
time that we had together.
And then, she started
to get really, really sick.
We went to a neurologist,
and he told us straight out,
he says, "You've got
some tumors in your brain."
I was shocked.
That's-- that's an
understatement.
[somber music playing]
And did the best that we could
to make her comfortable.
That lasted about a month
before she passed.
Devastating.
She was 45 when she passed.
She didn't want to be put
in the ground
with all the bugs.
So, she wanted to be cremated.
One of our friends
had given us the name, Lambs.
It was mentioned to me that it
was the biggest and the best.
They just helped me
pick out an urn.
We had a farewell get-together,
uh, on their premises.
We paid our last respect.
It was, uh, heartbreaking.
How do I even know the ashes
that they gave me
was Nancy's ashes?
It could have been anybody.
Or it could have been ten people
put in there together.
I didn't know, you know.
I-- even today,
I still never know.
Everything with David
was fast, fast, fast.
It was just one thing
after another.
Moving, and building,
and buying, and business.
And he had so many things
on the fire all the time.
[suspenseful music playing]
He would come home,
and he would be on the phone
watching TV,
and reading at the same time.
His brain just never shut down.
David took me to the crematory
three times total.
It didn't interest me.
I didn't want to be there.
Um, it was just this tiny
little house that had a chimney.
I didn't know much
about his work.
I just knew that business
was going pretty well.
[David Geary] David's parents,
Laurieanne and Jerry,
were running the funeral home.
But they gave David
complete oversight
of the crematorium.
And they were very hands-off.
That was David's business.
He was charging
so much less per body
than anybody else.
It was-- you know,
it was a no-brainer.
Funeral homes all through
the area flocked to him.
[Skip Jones] David became
a real topic of conversation,
and all of a sudden,
people started chit-chatting
about the number of cremations
that Lamb Funeral Home
was doing,
and that that crematory
just couldn't handle
the volume of cremations.
"Well, you know,
well, how many is he doing?
Is he doing 100 a year
or 100 a month?"
Competitors were like,
"What the hell," you know?
Just, "How can this be?"
And one of the people who was
complaining most vociferously
was a guy named Tim Waters.
[curious music playing]
[Greg Abbott] Tim Waters
was in his early 20s.
He's this huge guy.
He's got these big, meaty hands
with rings all over it,
covered in jewelry.
He was a-- a brash kind of guy.
[David Geary] He was a--
a go-getter who had plans
to make it
in the funeral business.
[Greg] Tim owned Alpha Society
in Burbank
which was a cremation provider
offering these lower-cost
cremation services.
He did not have
his own crematorium.
And David Sconce was trying
to get Tim's business.
The story was that Tim
and David had a meeting.
Tim was a young guy,
but he was an intelligent guy.
Now, David's offering
to do his cremations
very inexpensively.
Tim understood
that the only thing
that could make up for that
is high volume.
And after that,
Tim started telling people
that he didn't trust David.
Tim was stirring things up
and giving a black eye
to-- to David's operation.
[breathing heavily]
[ominous music playing]
[vehicle approaching]
[flames whooshing]
[chains rattling]
[ominous music
continues playing]
[ominous music continues]
[rings jingling]
I had no idea
so many people died every day.
[flames whooshing]
You know, you start tripping
and everything,
like, with all these
dead bodies around you.
Could've sworn that guy moved.
It could get bad.
Oh, my God, man,
this is too much.
-[dog barking in distance]
-[birdsong]
[children chattering
in distance]
[Barbara] We had been married
for a little while.
And David came home one day
from work with a Styrofoam cup.
And it had "AU" written
on the side of the cup.
I didn't even know
what "AU" was.
Then, I found him
with the cup
sitting on the floor
in the garage
cracking teeth with a hammer.
[dark music playing]
[inhales sharply]
He just [claps]
broke the tooth,
grabbed the gold,
put it back in the cup,
swept the teeth away.
"AU" means gold.
He sold the gold.
This is normal?
This is not normal.
[laughing]
This is not normal.
I just sat there thinking,
what world am I in?
I-- what did I do?
What-- what did I do?
[tense music playing]
[Johnny speaking]
"Can you do this for me?"
And I said,
"I don't really
want to do that, Dave."
So, he didn't make me do it.
He did it himself.
He would have a pair of pliers
and a screwdriver.
That's about it.
[Andre] All the bodies
were inspected for gold.
He was making $20,000,
$30,000 a month
just from the gold.
[dark music continues playing]
Removing gold teeth.
Removing gold teeth, okay?
You know, I can't say
it wasn't done
because my employees
did it at length.
No, I did it on request
a couple of different times.
Family request.
Family wanted it back.
"Well, we just want 'em back."
Okay. Who knows?
[distant sirens wailing]
[uneasy music playing]
[Andre] Dave was very free
and open with spending money.
You know,
he's buying everybody beers.
You know, food,
"You want something to eat?"
David Sconce and I
were very close.
Not only at work,
after work,
Throwing balloons at people.
[former employee speaking]
[Andre]
He had this Corvette.
"I BRN 4U"
was his license plate.
He's making a joke out of it.
"I own a crematorium
and I burn bodies for a living."
Why would you put
your business out,
like, on the street like that,
for anybody to see?
Okay, there was a lot
of money in our house.
We had nice cars, we had boats,
we had jet skis.
It was good when it was good.
It was very good.
[Brad Sallard]
I was working with David.
I had fun.
David knew how to have fun.
Once a month
we'd fly to Las Vegas,
each put 100 bucks into a pot.
The last man left standing
got the pot,
and that was
our business meeting.
[laughing]
[David Geary]
A lot of people
were making money
in the business.
But not the kind of money
David Sconce was making.
So, how--
how was he making it?
[curious music playing]
Tim Waters
was asking questions.
He did his
own little digging.
He was talking
to other funeral directors.
And supposedly,
Tim was considering
writing up a story
about David Sconce
for this prominent funeral home
magazine,
Mortuary Management
which was run by a guy
named Ron Hast.
And Ron and Tim
were ready to-- to rock
with some really heavy
allegations.
[David Sconce]
My mother gets a phone call
from that magazine.
And she's got tears
in her eyes.
You know, my mom
would give anything to anybody.
I mean, she worked hard.
She counseled families
all the time.
She did the hair
for all the funerals.
She played the organ
for all the services.
She got all the flowers,
she did the chapel.
She did everything
for that place.
But with how
the cremation facility ran,
that was my business.
So, she didn't need
some windbag threatening her
with a bad article,
you know, making her cry.
And I told her
I'd take care of it.
[Andre]
David Sconce approaches us
and says,
"Hey, I'm getting a problem
"from a couple of guys.
You know,
I want you guys to go
and send 'em a message."
He was impressed
with Danny Galambos,
David Edwards, and myself
because of our
athletic backgrounds.
He liked having guys around him
that were-- the perception was,
"These are my friends,
"but if you get outta line
and if I don't like you,
these guys will fuck you up."
There were business cards
that Sconce made up.
He gave us a nickname,
Big Men Unlimited.
He thought
we were his henchmen.
[suspenseful music playing]
So, one night, David Edwards,
Danny Galambos, and myself
go to Ron Hast's residence.
We, you know,
beat him up, rough him up.
You know, it's like,
"Don't fuck with me,
or you're gonna get
more of the same."
[Andre] Okay.
That one was Danny
and another guy
and I wasn't part of that.
So, I don't know
anything about it,
other than it happened.
[dramatic music playing]
Tim Waters got beat up,
and I mean, really beat up.
David's guys showed up
at his office late at night.
They came in
and beat the shit out of him.
[Greg] David Sconce
had this idea that,
"If my little operation,
my empire of what I've got going
"is threatened,
I'm gonna deal with it.
I've got this little
mafia-like operation going."
I mean, who gets thugs
in this day and age?
[David Geary]
Waters was just a mess.
These guys really did
a number on him.
And a lot of people
believed that would be it.
And Tim, I guess, just wouldn't,
you know, shut up.
Two months later
he was dead.
[uneasy music playing]
The story was that
he had gone out to eat
supposedly with David
and shortly thereafter
fell very, very ill.
He died of what was apparently
a heart attack.
At 24. Come on.
[David Sconce] When I heard
that Tim Waters had died
'Kay. Well, I mean,
it's not unexpected.
If you look at a guy
who's maybe 350 pounds,
and he's five-foot whatever,
well, yeah, he's gonna have
a heart attack, okay?
Waters didn't do
anything to me.
I mean, I think I saw him
one time in my life.
But other than that,
I had no interaction with him.
I never went to lunch with him
or whatever, you know.
That's it.
That's all there is to it.
[Andre] When I heard
that Tim Waters had died
you know, in my mind,
I'm like
"Fucking Sconce did that."
[suspenseful music playing]
[dramatic music playing]
♪♪
[flames whooshing]
[whooshing intensifies]
[whooshing stops abruptly]
[Darlynn Branton-Stoa]
When you first
are grieving a loss
it's really difficult.
This is a time of saying
goodbye to your loved one
and doing the best
you can for them
because you love them
and they loved you.
My dad and I were very close.
He was my sweet loving daddy
who just, you know,
stroked my head as a child
and loved me so much.
He died in September of 1986.
He was taken
to the Pasadena Crematory
that the Lambs owned.
I trusted that the people
would take care of him.
To have that trust be violated
is unconscionable.
[Darlynn sighs]
I received my dad's ashes
in a white cardboard box
still warm to the touch.
[somber music playing]
When I found out they violated
and desecrated my father
I was shocked,
I was devastated.
It was just horrible.
David Sconce,
he's just a monster.
He's evil.
[lid snapping closed]
People see us everywhere ♪
They think you really care ♪
But myself,
I can't deceive ♪
I know it's only
make-believe ♪
["It's Only Make Believe"
by Glen Campbell playing]
My one and only prayer ♪
Is that someday you'll care ♪
My hopes,
my dreams come true ♪
My one and only you ♪
No one will ever know ♪
How much I love you so ♪
My only prayer will be ♪
Someday you'll care for me
but it's only ♪
Make-believe ♪
[music stops abruptly]
[birdsong]
[Jolena Grande]
Being in funeral service,
we cannot bring our work home.
No one wants to talk
over dinner
about what we did
during the day.
We see people
in their worst situation.
We see them
at the time of death,
and then we see them
beyond death into decomposition.
Many people
don't want that image.
In fact, we do our best
as funeral directors
so that you don't have
to see that image.
We embalm,
we prepare, we dress,
we casket, we cosmetize.
We do everything
we possibly can
so that the client family
can see their loved one
looking as though
there was no pain or trauma.
In today's environment,
we don't talk about death.
And that-- those of us
in funeral service,
day in, day out,
a constant familiarity
with death.
[gentle music playing]
For funeral directors,
trust is foundational.
It's the most prestigious
of responsibilities.
The unfortunate reality is,
like any other occupation,
there are some bad apples.
David Sconce had been a student
here at Cypress College
and had taken
some of the courses
in the Mortuary
Science program.
The scandal
had huge reverberations.
But after all these years,
I don't think
he's ever told his story.
Will you get an interview
with David?
Are you really?
[gasps]
That would be phenomenal.
Wow.
[ominous music playing]
-[music stops]
-[light traffic noise]
[ominous music resumes]
[David Sconce]
Yeah, I'm still in shock
from being out of custody.
I can't believe somebody's
actually taken an interest
in what I've known
for so long.
I'm an open book for you guys.
There ain't--
There's nothing
you can't ask me.
[rhythmic percussion
music playing]
[people chattering]
Okay, going back
to the start of it all.
Back when I was a kid
my grandfather,
Lawrence Lamb,
owned the Lamb Funeral Home
in Pasadena.
[gentle music playing]
The family would spend
all our time at the mortuary.
Even as a little kid
being around death
was not a big deal.
You know, I remember there's no
reason to be afraid of anything.
[Ashley Dunn] The Lamb
Funeral Home was a mortuary
that a lot of people
used and trusted.
And even in
the mortuary business,
they were really
well-known as a place
of family and Christian values.
The Lamb family
did all of our business.
My grandfather
was the first to use them,
and that was in 1946.
If you were anyone,
you used Lambs.
The Lamb family was an extremely
prominent old Pasadena family.
Charles Lamb established
his funeral home in the '20s.
He was a very dignified,
respected member
of the community.
And then, his son,
Lawrence Lamb,
took over the funeral home
around 1950.
I knew Lawrence Lamb.
Great guy.
Well-respected family.
He managed the business
until the 1980s.
His daughter,
Laurieanne Lamb,
and her husband, Jerry Sconce,
ultimately took over
the family business.
And for many years,
they operated it perfectly
until their son, David Sconce,
got involved
in the family business.
[birdsong]
[Elizabeth Creamer]
I've had my grandmother, aunt,
uncle, cousin, father,
they've all used Lamb,
up until--
Mother was the last.
[melancholy music playing]
When my mother died,
I was in-- just in pain.
And of course, I was elected to
go up and visit with the Lambs.
I said, "I would like
my mother's wedding ring
with her."
But the lady I talked to
said, "No, don't do it."
She was very adamant
and she said,
"No, you would be much happier
"and, uh, it will give you
a lot of pleasure
and memories
to keep the ring."
And I thought that was odd.
I think she was trying
to tell me something
that she couldn't tell me.
Later, I realized
she was right.
[birdsong]
[David Geary]
The funeral business,
it's a pretty
lucrative business,
and it can be.
I mean, it's steady.
Everybody dies.
[uneasy music playing]
A funeral is, next to buying
a house or a car,
the biggest expense
that the average American
will-- will ever have.
[Gary Laderman] The questions
around how we dispose
of the dead
are a driving force
in human history.
There's a desire, you know,
if not a compulsion,
to commemorate the dead,
to do right by the dead.
But for many years,
Americans didn't have
a funeral industry.
Family members
and religious leaders
took care of the body
themselves.
It was very intimate.
During the Civil War
the process of embalming
takes hold
and becomes known
as the American way of death.
[uneasy music
continues playing]
There's a great deal
of ambivalence
around the emergence
of these new figures.
The funeral director,
"the mortician,"
"the undertaker."
These entrepreneurs
who wanted to be understood by
the public as professionals.
As people you can trust.
They modeled themselves
off of doctors and lawyers,
and dressed the part.
Traditionally, funeral homes
are family-run businesses.
It's what we think of as kind
of mom-and-pop institutions.
And clearly, it worked.
Funeral service became
a multi-billion-dollar business.
So, you see people
turn to cremation
as a low-cost alternative.
[David Sconce]
My family was heavily invested
in the community in Pasadena.
You know,
my mom's parents were loaded.
My mom, she was in
the 1954 Rose Parade.
My dad played football
in college,
and he was a PE instructor
at a high school.
I dreamed of playing football.
I'd played for a while,
but all my dreams ended
when I stepped in a gopher hole
and tore my knee up.
I was crushed.
One day, my mom and dad
called me and they said,
"Your mother's gonna buy the
mortuary business from her dad.
"She's not gonna pay
any money to do it.
She's just gonna come in there
and run it,"
'cause he was getting older.
I never saw myself working
in the funeral industry.
But, you know, they said,
"Hey, look,
"there's this place,
Cypress College.
Why don't you get
your mortuary certification?"
You know, I wasn't interested
in counseling families.
I already knew how to embalm
from years ago.
Old trade guy taught me
when I was about 12.
But at that time,
cremation was increasing.
And we had this
really old facility
that's run by diesel fuel
and gravity, you know.
It was called
the Pasadena Crematorium.
And it was up there
at, uh, Mountain View.
Mountain View Cemetery
actually was established in 1882
by my great-great-grandfather.
We have our own cemetery
funeral home, and crematory.
The Lamb Funeral Home's
cremation facility
the Pasadena Crematorium,
was located within our grounds.
It was a separate business
right there on our property.
And they only
cremated individuals
that used
the Lamb Funeral Home.
[David Sconce]
Well, when I started
going to the mortuary school,
we got to talking.
It was like, you know,
"Where are you guys from,"
or, "What mortuary
you work for?"
I would just ask him, I'd say,
"Who does your cremations?"
Because most places didn't have
a crematory of their own.
"Oh, we send 'em to Grandview.
Oh, we send 'em
to Angeles Abbey."
They would have to use
their own manpower,
take it to wherever they were
getting the case cremated,
spend the money, and have
to come all the way back
and pick 'em up.
I go, "Well, what do you
get charged?"
"Oh, 250, 300 bucks."
And I thought, "Wow.
"We can cremate
a whole lot more bodies
than we're cremating now."
And I can pick up cremations.
I go, why wouldn't somebody
be interested
in-- in having me do
their work at a lot lower price?
So, that's what
it really started as.
And it took off.
[curious music playing]
[Jay Brown] Around 1982
was when David Sconce
started to offer
their cremation services
out to other funeral homes.
Because David's
crematory operation
was right there
on our property.
I do recall
every time
that crematory was used
you could see a little smoke
when they started it up.
Maybe it was used
two times a week,
maybe three times a week.
And then, we started
to notice
they were doing
10 cremations a week.
It was in those early days
that David Sconce
was the sole owner
and operator.
He was doing all the work.
He stayed pretty much
to his-- his business,
came in, unloaded the cases,
did the cremations, and left.
Seemed like a nice fellow.
[curious music continues]
[David Sconce]
Every day, in my old Dodge van,
you know, I took the seats out,
I'd drive around
picking up dead folks.
I had pickups from probably
40, 50 mortuaries
from Santa Barbara
to San Diego.
[Jay]
When he started the service,
the way he generated business
was he came in and undercut
everybody on their price.
[David Sconce]
My costs for each case--
a case is a body,
a case is a dead body--
would have been
the cardboard container
and whatever diesel fuel
was used
for the actual, uh, cremation.
The boxes were five bucks each,
and the diesel fuel
was probably less than that.
I'd cremate the body
and then return the ash
to the mortuary
or scatter at sea.
I charged 55 bucks.
It was a pretty good deal.
So, there was a reason
my-- my service business grew,
as it grew
pretty much overnight.
I hired these huge guys.
Dave Edwards,
Danny Galambos,
and Andre,
former football players.
You know, I-- I trained 'em
to pick up cases.
Danny Galambos, loudmouth,
unibrow,
big Hungarian bodybuilder.
Danny's dad,
he's an old mob guy
and he ran around with
the Russians out in the valley.
I didn't know until
after I hired him.
But anyway, Dave Edwards
was, uh, much brighter
and-- and soft-spoken.
Andre came in, he was a friend
of one or both of 'em.
[Andre Augustine]
Back in the day,
I was a poor
ex-college football player.
You know, bumming around
at my parents' house,
you know, for six months a year,
and I needed a job.
My friend David Edwards
had started doing deliveries
and pickups for David Sconce
in the crematorium,
and they needed somebody
to drive the truck
three days a week.
So, I started working
for David Sconce.
[dark music playing]
I don't know anything.
I don't know what
I'm supposed to do
other than pick up the bodies.
I almost threw up the first day
driving the truck.
I'm in a 14-foot box truck.
No lift gate, no air.
[lights clicking]
[wheel rattling]
I had to go into the mortuary,
help the guy
push the gurney out
and put the bodies
in the back of the truck.
They had been out
of the cold room for a while,
so there were odors.
There's no doubt about what
it is you're smelling, you know?
The smell is death.
It was real hard.
The whole time, I'm like
just be cool, you know.
Remember how much money
you're making.
And you know, that's how
you get through it, right?
Two-hundred-fifty bucks a day.
Once you got back
to Pasadena
the-- the guys there check
the paperwork,
check the tags,
and then do what they did.
[tense music playing]
I saw some things
that weren't nice.
But that wasn't
really my business.
I just drove the truck,
you know what I'm saying?
[truck engine rumbling]
[David Sconce] The business
was going really good.
I had all these guys
picking up cases to be cremated.
Everything went so quickly.
And then, right in the middle
of all of it,
I met Barbara.
[breeze blowing, flags flapping]
When I first met David?
He was very big.
Big as life.
I was working retail,
and he came in.
The first thing I remember
was his white blonde hair,
and his massive physique,
and the hair on his legs.
I don't know how specific
you want me to get,
but it was-- he was just like
this god to me.
[gentle music playing]
[David Sconce]
I met Barbara at the mall.
And she's selling suits.
You know when you see somebody
and you go in your head, you go,
"Ah, that's the woman
that's gonna have my kids"?
Yeah, I really thought that.
So, I-- I had a
Black American Express card
and I thought, okay,
I'm gonna impress her.
She looks at the card
and she looks at me,
and she looks at the card again.
So, she real quick writes her
phone number down. [laughing]
Then, we started
dating after that.
[Barbara Hunt]
He was funny. He was fun.
He had a beautiful family.
Jerry had been
a football coach.
Laurieanne was very active
in her church.
Laurieanne, and Jerry,
and David,
and his brother Gary
were the all-American family.
They had actually been
in an ad for Maytag.
[laughing]
They were the Maytag family.
I was very infatuated,
fell in love right away.
[camera clicking]
[gentle music playing]
The day of the wedding,
his grandfather,
Lawrence Lamb,
came to me and said,
"Are you sure
you want to marry him?"
And I said, "Yes, I do.
I'm so happy."
And then, Lucile Lamb,
his grandma,
came to me and said
"Are you sure
you wanna do this?"
His father, Jerry, says to me,
"You know, you can back out."
Well, you know,
the day of your wedding,
these are things you really
don't wanna hear.
Three people ask you if this
is exactly what you want to do?
[curious music playing]
I thought it was very strange,
but I didn't let it stop me.
I-- I wanted to marry him.
[ominous music playing]
[crows cawing]
[Johnny Pollerana]
I guess right-hand man
with David Sconce is probably
what you would call me.
I was always with him.
I always did
everything with him,
and I-- I'm the only one
that did cremations,
because, you know,
I was the only one
he trusted to do it.
I was from the north side
of Pasadena.
I was a gang member.
I was getting high,
having fun,
doing stupid stuff,
getting in trouble,
going to jail.
Never thought of working
at a crematorium.
But my cousin got a job
working in the cemetery.
He introduced me to David.
I got hired to work there.
I went with Dave
to the crematorium.
Dave showed me
how it all went.
[metal squeaking]
There was two ovens.
Showed me how to load it,
how to close 'em,
how to put the burners on.
-So, and that was it.
-[flames whooshing]
He paid me cash
for whatever I did,
somewhere around
$6,000 a month,
in-- in my early 20s,
which was a lot of money.
Being my background of not
having the education or skills.
I was taking care of my family
for the first time
in a long time.
So, you know what I mean,
it's like,
whatever he wanted me to do,
I was gonna do.
[crickets chirping]
[dark music playing]
[Jay] As time went on,
David's business
seemed to ramp up steadily.
We never saw
inside the building.
All we saw was the truck
coming and going
at all hours
of the day and night.
It was like an assembly line.
Now, typically, a funeral home,
when they have a cremation case,
will bring the remains
to the crematory
in their own vehicle.
That individual
is placed in a chamber.
And then, the process
of cremation
usually takes about two hours.
[door closes]
Because you have to allow
the chamber to cool down
before you can safely remove
the cremated remains
of one individual and start
cremating another one.
The Pasadena Crematorium
had two chambers.
That would mean they could
properly do four cremations
in an eight-hour day.
You just sort of had
to scratch your head
and try to figure out
how they could be unloading
15 and 20 individuals at a time,
and then come back
five or six hours later
with another 15 or 20.
[rumbling]
They must have
a pretty efficient way
of doing their cremations.
[somber music playing]
David made everything
seem quite normal. Everything.
Uh, he'd put like two
or three bodies in each oven.
At a time.
[chains rattling]
[Andre]
I saw what they're doing.
They would break
a collarbone, or a leg,
or an arm to get it
in a position
to be the most compact
to fit in the oven.
They had this gaff hook
used to move, you know,
-sides of beef around.
-[hook scraping]
You know, hooking the bodies
under the armpit
and dragging 'em in there.
And there was
a running competition
between David Sconce
and Johnny
on who was able to load
the most bodies
in the oven at one time.
Whoever had the record,
they were proud of it.
[Johnny speaking]
So, it wasn't so, like, nasty,
or-- or scary, or spooky,
or ugly, or whatever it was,
it was just part of the job.
[eerie music playing]
This is just disposing
of the-- of the rotten meat.
The soul is gone anyway.
[ominous music playing]
[Andre]
First thing I thought of was,
how-- how do they know
which ashes
to put in which box?
And then I realize, oh, fuck,
they don't know.
[somber music playing]
Sure.
Well, back then, because
of the multiple cremations,
see, I could cremate, uh,
one guy in, like, two hours,
or you could put ten of 'em
in there
and it takes
two and a half hours.
So, what would be
the difference?
There is none.
Hard-hearted as that sounds,
there-- there is none.
[fire crackling]
Anybody in this business
who runs a crematory
can never get all of the ash
out of that oven
before they put another body
in there to be cremated.
[metal scraping]
It's a perforated
kind of a brick floor,
and there's ash in there
from dozens of people.
It's fact,
it's how things are.
So, to me, commingling of ash
is not a big deal.
I don't put any value
in anybody
after they're gone and dead,
as they shouldn't
in when I'm gone and dead.
That's not a person anymore.
Oh, sure.
Yeah, I worried--
I worried about, you know,
because like I said, it was
a misdemeanor at the time.
And I-- I stupidly
justified it by saying,
"Oh, it's a misdemeanor
and nobody
cares about
these people anyway."
Because most of my cases
were scatter at sea.
It would show up
on the disposition permit.
There's no visitors,
there's no viewing, you know?
These relatives didn't want any
part of that person back, okay?
I don't understand
how they have a difficulty
with someone who's gonna go
in the ocean
and be commingled
with the other guy
who goes in the ocean
right after him.
You know, why is that so bad?
It's just not logical,
it doesn't make any sense,
and I've never accepted that.
I just haven't.
You know what?
There's no difference
in anybody's cremated ash.
There's no difference.
It's potash and lime.
That's it.
A little bit of carb--
I mean, it's all the same.
People just gotta be more
in control of their emotions,
because that's not
your loved one anymore,
and it never has been.
Love 'em when they're here.
Period.
[birdsong]
[gentle music playing]
[Juergen Jakob]
Nancy and I lived
in the same apartment building.
We met at the pool, and we just,
uh, we just clicked.
She was very,
very good-hearted.
She taught English
at Beverly Hills High.
And she loved her job.
I was in the restaurant
business.
I worked at Chasen's.
Frank Sinatra,
Sammy Davis Jr.,
Alfred Hitchcock--
everybody
in show business was there.
[gentle music
continues playing]
We both worked very hard,
but we also had
a lot of fun together,
and made the most of the short
time that we had together.
And then, she started
to get really, really sick.
We went to a neurologist,
and he told us straight out,
he says, "You've got
some tumors in your brain."
I was shocked.
That's-- that's an
understatement.
[somber music playing]
And did the best that we could
to make her comfortable.
That lasted about a month
before she passed.
Devastating.
She was 45 when she passed.
She didn't want to be put
in the ground
with all the bugs.
So, she wanted to be cremated.
One of our friends
had given us the name, Lambs.
It was mentioned to me that it
was the biggest and the best.
They just helped me
pick out an urn.
We had a farewell get-together,
uh, on their premises.
We paid our last respect.
It was, uh, heartbreaking.
How do I even know the ashes
that they gave me
was Nancy's ashes?
It could have been anybody.
Or it could have been ten people
put in there together.
I didn't know, you know.
I-- even today,
I still never know.
Everything with David
was fast, fast, fast.
It was just one thing
after another.
Moving, and building,
and buying, and business.
And he had so many things
on the fire all the time.
[suspenseful music playing]
He would come home,
and he would be on the phone
watching TV,
and reading at the same time.
His brain just never shut down.
David took me to the crematory
three times total.
It didn't interest me.
I didn't want to be there.
Um, it was just this tiny
little house that had a chimney.
I didn't know much
about his work.
I just knew that business
was going pretty well.
[David Geary] David's parents,
Laurieanne and Jerry,
were running the funeral home.
But they gave David
complete oversight
of the crematorium.
And they were very hands-off.
That was David's business.
He was charging
so much less per body
than anybody else.
It was-- you know,
it was a no-brainer.
Funeral homes all through
the area flocked to him.
[Skip Jones] David became
a real topic of conversation,
and all of a sudden,
people started chit-chatting
about the number of cremations
that Lamb Funeral Home
was doing,
and that that crematory
just couldn't handle
the volume of cremations.
"Well, you know,
well, how many is he doing?
Is he doing 100 a year
or 100 a month?"
Competitors were like,
"What the hell," you know?
Just, "How can this be?"
And one of the people who was
complaining most vociferously
was a guy named Tim Waters.
[curious music playing]
[Greg Abbott] Tim Waters
was in his early 20s.
He's this huge guy.
He's got these big, meaty hands
with rings all over it,
covered in jewelry.
He was a-- a brash kind of guy.
[David Geary] He was a--
a go-getter who had plans
to make it
in the funeral business.
[Greg] Tim owned Alpha Society
in Burbank
which was a cremation provider
offering these lower-cost
cremation services.
He did not have
his own crematorium.
And David Sconce was trying
to get Tim's business.
The story was that Tim
and David had a meeting.
Tim was a young guy,
but he was an intelligent guy.
Now, David's offering
to do his cremations
very inexpensively.
Tim understood
that the only thing
that could make up for that
is high volume.
And after that,
Tim started telling people
that he didn't trust David.
Tim was stirring things up
and giving a black eye
to-- to David's operation.
[breathing heavily]
[ominous music playing]
[vehicle approaching]
[flames whooshing]
[chains rattling]
[ominous music
continues playing]
[ominous music continues]
[rings jingling]
I had no idea
so many people died every day.
[flames whooshing]
You know, you start tripping
and everything,
like, with all these
dead bodies around you.
Could've sworn that guy moved.
It could get bad.
Oh, my God, man,
this is too much.
-[dog barking in distance]
-[birdsong]
[children chattering
in distance]
[Barbara] We had been married
for a little while.
And David came home one day
from work with a Styrofoam cup.
And it had "AU" written
on the side of the cup.
I didn't even know
what "AU" was.
Then, I found him
with the cup
sitting on the floor
in the garage
cracking teeth with a hammer.
[dark music playing]
[inhales sharply]
He just [claps]
broke the tooth,
grabbed the gold,
put it back in the cup,
swept the teeth away.
"AU" means gold.
He sold the gold.
This is normal?
This is not normal.
[laughing]
This is not normal.
I just sat there thinking,
what world am I in?
I-- what did I do?
What-- what did I do?
[tense music playing]
[Johnny speaking]
"Can you do this for me?"
And I said,
"I don't really
want to do that, Dave."
So, he didn't make me do it.
He did it himself.
He would have a pair of pliers
and a screwdriver.
That's about it.
[Andre] All the bodies
were inspected for gold.
He was making $20,000,
$30,000 a month
just from the gold.
[dark music continues playing]
Removing gold teeth.
Removing gold teeth, okay?
You know, I can't say
it wasn't done
because my employees
did it at length.
No, I did it on request
a couple of different times.
Family request.
Family wanted it back.
"Well, we just want 'em back."
Okay. Who knows?
[distant sirens wailing]
[uneasy music playing]
[Andre] Dave was very free
and open with spending money.
You know,
he's buying everybody beers.
You know, food,
"You want something to eat?"
David Sconce and I
were very close.
Not only at work,
after work,
Throwing balloons at people.
[former employee speaking]
[Andre]
He had this Corvette.
"I BRN 4U"
was his license plate.
He's making a joke out of it.
"I own a crematorium
and I burn bodies for a living."
Why would you put
your business out,
like, on the street like that,
for anybody to see?
Okay, there was a lot
of money in our house.
We had nice cars, we had boats,
we had jet skis.
It was good when it was good.
It was very good.
[Brad Sallard]
I was working with David.
I had fun.
David knew how to have fun.
Once a month
we'd fly to Las Vegas,
each put 100 bucks into a pot.
The last man left standing
got the pot,
and that was
our business meeting.
[laughing]
[David Geary]
A lot of people
were making money
in the business.
But not the kind of money
David Sconce was making.
So, how--
how was he making it?
[curious music playing]
Tim Waters
was asking questions.
He did his
own little digging.
He was talking
to other funeral directors.
And supposedly,
Tim was considering
writing up a story
about David Sconce
for this prominent funeral home
magazine,
Mortuary Management
which was run by a guy
named Ron Hast.
And Ron and Tim
were ready to-- to rock
with some really heavy
allegations.
[David Sconce]
My mother gets a phone call
from that magazine.
And she's got tears
in her eyes.
You know, my mom
would give anything to anybody.
I mean, she worked hard.
She counseled families
all the time.
She did the hair
for all the funerals.
She played the organ
for all the services.
She got all the flowers,
she did the chapel.
She did everything
for that place.
But with how
the cremation facility ran,
that was my business.
So, she didn't need
some windbag threatening her
with a bad article,
you know, making her cry.
And I told her
I'd take care of it.
[Andre]
David Sconce approaches us
and says,
"Hey, I'm getting a problem
"from a couple of guys.
You know,
I want you guys to go
and send 'em a message."
He was impressed
with Danny Galambos,
David Edwards, and myself
because of our
athletic backgrounds.
He liked having guys around him
that were-- the perception was,
"These are my friends,
"but if you get outta line
and if I don't like you,
these guys will fuck you up."
There were business cards
that Sconce made up.
He gave us a nickname,
Big Men Unlimited.
He thought
we were his henchmen.
[suspenseful music playing]
So, one night, David Edwards,
Danny Galambos, and myself
go to Ron Hast's residence.
We, you know,
beat him up, rough him up.
You know, it's like,
"Don't fuck with me,
or you're gonna get
more of the same."
[Andre] Okay.
That one was Danny
and another guy
and I wasn't part of that.
So, I don't know
anything about it,
other than it happened.
[dramatic music playing]
Tim Waters got beat up,
and I mean, really beat up.
David's guys showed up
at his office late at night.
They came in
and beat the shit out of him.
[Greg] David Sconce
had this idea that,
"If my little operation,
my empire of what I've got going
"is threatened,
I'm gonna deal with it.
I've got this little
mafia-like operation going."
I mean, who gets thugs
in this day and age?
[David Geary]
Waters was just a mess.
These guys really did
a number on him.
And a lot of people
believed that would be it.
And Tim, I guess, just wouldn't,
you know, shut up.
Two months later
he was dead.
[uneasy music playing]
The story was that
he had gone out to eat
supposedly with David
and shortly thereafter
fell very, very ill.
He died of what was apparently
a heart attack.
At 24. Come on.
[David Sconce] When I heard
that Tim Waters had died
'Kay. Well, I mean,
it's not unexpected.
If you look at a guy
who's maybe 350 pounds,
and he's five-foot whatever,
well, yeah, he's gonna have
a heart attack, okay?
Waters didn't do
anything to me.
I mean, I think I saw him
one time in my life.
But other than that,
I had no interaction with him.
I never went to lunch with him
or whatever, you know.
That's it.
That's all there is to it.
[Andre] When I heard
that Tim Waters had died
you know, in my mind,
I'm like
"Fucking Sconce did that."
[suspenseful music playing]
[dramatic music playing]
♪♪