The Mortician (2025) s01e02 Episode Script
Episode 2
1
[curious music playing]
[Andre Augustine] Tim Waters
had put two and two together
and knew what David Sconce
was doing.
He knew that on
a crematorium side
he was doing something that
was either illegal or immoral.
[David Geary]
The rumors were that Tim Waters
had gone out to eat with David
right before he died.
People were saying
that David had had him killed.
[Andre]
After Tim Waters had died
without an obstruction
to his success
David Sconce, he felt like
he could do anything.
[dramatic music playing]
[David Geary]
David had grand plans.
He had designs on, you know,
the entire West.
And he went out and he
solicited a lot more business.
[former employee speaking]
[flames whooshing]
[dramatic music
continues playing]
[music intensifies]
[music fades out]
[Johnny Pollerana speaking]
The shelves would be full.
The freezer would be full.
And I could never catch up.
Never.
And in return, if he needed me
to do something, I did it.
Except I wasn't gonna
beat nobody up,
I wasn't gonna kill anybody,
and I wasn't gonna do
anything illegal other
than what we were doing.
"There's nothing gonna happen,"
and everything happened.
That Murphy's Law thing,
you know?
If it can go wrong,
it's gonna go wrong.
And it really went wrong.
[chains rattling]
[former employee] One night,
I was a runner
at the crematorium.
[flames whooshing]
[fire roaring]
[flames whooshing]
[ominous music playing]
[David Sconce]
I forget who called me.
I think Johnny was the one
who called me, I think.
Yeah, "Whoa, what do you mean,
it burned down?"
[ominous music
continues playing]
I found out these guys smoked
their dope, and they left!
It's just
[sighs] There's no words.
There's no words.
[wind whistling]
[Jay Brown]
You know, after the fire,
David's business
didn't shut down.
He was still picking up cases,
and yet everybody knew
that his facility
had burnt down.
[mysterious music playing]
[David Sconce] After the fire
happened at the crematory
I didn't stop.
But nobody could figure out
where I was cremating
my bodies.
[birdsong]
[soft eerie music playing]
[Richard Wales]
In 1986, I was working
as the Air Quality Engineer
for the San Bernardino County
Air Pollution Control Agency.
My job was to protect
the environment
for the health and welfare
of the citizens
that live in the area.
We had received complaints
from the citizenry
in the high desert
in the Hesperia area
about a facility.
The name was Oscar Ceramics.
The owner was David Sconce.
They claimed
they were making ceramic tiles
for NASA and the space industry.
We had a business owner
in the area
complaining about smell
smoke coming out
of the building,
and even sometimes flames
leaping out of the stack.
He was very adamant
that he smelled burning bodies,
burning flesh.
He was in one
of the military units
that had, uh, liberated one
of the concentration camps,
I believe it was
Auschwitz itself.
And so, he knew this odor to him
was the same odor
that he had smelled then.
[eerie music continues]
We just knew
there's something going on.
[Johnny speaking]
And all the things
that followed with it
were stuff that were gonna
get us in trouble.
It's starting to get like,
what are we doing?
We're going way, way, way,
way, way overboard.
I mean, it's not like
I'm gonna stop doing it.
I've already been doing it.
But it was like a lot.
[eerie music
continues playing]
[David Dicus] My name is
David Dicus, I was a sergeant
with the San Bernardino
Sheriff's Department.
I, uh, was assigned to run
the detective bureau.
We had a couple of our patrolmen
called out to the scene.
There was a ceramics factory in
Hesperia called Oscar Ceramics.
There was smoke coming
underneath the doors.
One of the patrolmen
called us up and said,
"I-- this-- this case
seems like it's got legs."
[ominous music playing]
We rolled out to the scene.
When we first arrived,
nobody would come out.
Then, once we had
a pretty good presence
between law enforcement
and the fire,
um, he ultimately did come out,
a Hispanic gentleman.
[ominous music continues]
[Johnny speaking]
And
finally, the San Bernardino
County Sheriff came.
That's when they got to come in.
Otherwise, I was stalling
these guys as long as I could.
[Richard]
The operator in there,
he was working in a--
a Camaro.
He did not sit in the building.
I asked him why.
He said, "It's too smoky
in there to work."
He actually had a-- a small TV
and the phone line
into his car sitting out
by the door of the building.
Johnny claimed to us
he did not know
what was going on in the kilns.
He said somebody else
loaded the kilns.
When they're loaded,
he gets a call to come up
and fire the kilns off.
He was very nervous,
he did call Mr. Sconce,
supposably,
and talked with him.
And I think--
I think at that point,
David must have known
that the gig was up.
[Johnny speaking]
He says, "I don't know,
but hide the stuff."
I go, [scoffs]
"David, we can't--
"We can't hide any more things.
It's too late.
We're in trouble now."
So, I hung up with him,
I went outside, got the key,
opened the door.
They came in.
[tense tones playing]
[David Dicus]
One we got inside
instantaneous, you can tell
there's something wrong,
uh, from the smell of it all.
When you first walk in,
there's soot
all over the walls.
Uh, the soot's so oily,
it's sticking to your shoes.
If you touch anything,
it would get on your clothing.
And we're all wearing suits,
so we tried to be
as careful as possible.
Uh, there were barrels
of prosthesis around,
because prosthesis don't burn.
It really kinda took you back.
[Johnny speaking]
I go, "I'm not opening
that oven, you can't make me.
"You open it.
You wanna see what's in there?
Open it."
[fire rumbling]
they stopped it
from being cremated.
So, it's just like a bunch
of bodies still in there.
So, I-- I went outside,
you know.
I didn't want to see all that.
[tense music playing]
[David Dicus]
We took the opportunity to open
one of the kilns to see
what was inside,
and there were multiple bones
from the whole process,
even some flesh that
had not been, uh,
totally burned yet.
[Richard]
Upon opening the kilns,
we saw burning material
falling out.
I did see what looked like
a human skull in there.
[tense music continues]
[David Dicus]
In front of the kilns,
they had cut trenches
about four inches wide
that ran out into the back
of the facility,
uh, primarily to capture
the human fat
that was burning off
of all these bodies.
[eerie jazz music playing]
[Richard]
This is beyond anything
I could really comprehend
in my own mind.
It's a surreal situation.
Do you really believe
what you're seeing,
even though you're seeing it?
[eerie jazz music
continues playing]
Uh, you just--
you kinda wonder
what type of people were doing
this type of operation.
[interviewer speaking]
Pfft, I don't know,
it was probably close to 200.
Right around in there,
150, 200 when they--
when they came
and shut the ovens down.
At a time.
Yeah.
[ominous music playing]
[David Sconce] Because of
the fire in Pasadena,
I used Hesperia
before it was really ready.
And that was a bad choice.
I made that choice.
I'm the only one
to blame for that.
Yeah, I could say,
well, I wanted to keep
all my people employed.
So, I needed to not
interrupt anything
that was working
towards the ultimate end.
But it doesn't justify
what I did, see?
I should have been more selfish
and shut everything down
and done it right.
But I was in a hurry.
Permits.
Conditional use permits.
Sure, that was still
gonna go on.
That was still gonna go on.
[soft mysterious
music playing]
I was working late
at the office,
and a story came over the wire
from the San Bernardino Sun.
It was a very short story.
The guy they said
was responsible
was David Sconce of Pasadena.
I thought, okay, he's local.
And I just got out
the phone book.
This is all pre-computers.
And I started calling people
named Sconce,
and there were a number
of them.
I asked questions about
this illegal crematorium.
About the fourth one,
the guy picked up the phone
and he just started
screaming and yelling,
you know, "Fuck you!
Who the fuck are you?"
And I thought,
"Okay, this is him,"
you know, "I got him."
[soft mysterious
music playing]
I found out he owned
Pasadena Crematorium.
And I called the number
in the phone book
and they answered the phone,
"Lamb Funeral Home."
They had the same
telephone number.
I knew the Lambs
were the Lambs.
They were prominent people,
I knew who they were.
So, I went to one
of the editors,
and I said,
"Something is happening here,
and it could be pretty wild."
So, we did a story
the following day,
which I wrote, and it said,
"Here he is, David Sconce,
and he's, you know, affiliated
with the Lamb Funeral Home."
I started to get phone calls.
People were very supportive
of the Lambs
and were, you know, outraged
that we would be
disparaging them in any way.
You know, "You should be
ashamed of yourself.
You shouldn't be
writing about this."
[birds chirping]
[David Dicus] At that point
in time, I really did not know
what crimes had been violated,
other than maybe
the pollution end of it,
environmental health.
But from a criminal standpoint,
we really didn't know
what we had.
We did serve the search warrant
in Pasadena
at the Lamb Funeral Home.
That was our first
search warrant.
And I had an opportunity
to walk around the place,
had an opportunity
to meet Laurieanne.
The sweetest lady
you ever want to talk to.
I asked her lots of questions
about the operation,
and she was more
than willing to talk.
She had no concept
of what was going on.
I saw the business office,
and there were photographs
on the walls.
Embalming photographs.
We started collecting evidence.
[camera clicking]
Then, we went back
into their cold storage.
[lights clacking]
We saw hundreds of bodies
-[camera clicking]
-wrapped up in cardboard.
-There were body parts.
-[camera clicking]
It was ghastly.
And I'm thinking,
these people are lawfully dead.
What do we really have here?
Was there more
criminal activity going on?
And who else was involved?
Our second search warrant
was on Lamb Senior's home.
[birds chirping]
Just like approaching
his house,
it's a big, beautiful house.
[ambient street
and traffic noise]
[solemn music playing]
Beautiful furnishings,
very cooperative people.
These people
had to have resources,
had to have some influence.
I got the impression
that Lamb Senior
was a stand-up guy.
He was a part
of that community forever.
He probably did cremations
one at a time,
and somehow,
the family members went awry.
[Elie Estephan] Lamb, the elder,
he was a decent man.
Straight as an arrow,
everything by the book.
[solemn music continues]
In this business,
you don't mass cremate.
It's illegal, it's a state law,
and it's-- it's inhuman.
And anti-everything
I believe in
is not to treat
a loved one of a family
with dignity and respect.
So, we don't mass cremate.
We can't.
All of a sudden,
Dave Sconce's case
blew up wide open.
Other mortuaries
start see-- reading it.
Supposedly, Lamb told
his daughter, actually,
"Your son will ruin my name."
[ominous music playing]
[siren wailing]
[David Sconce]
When the first search
of the premises took place
I got thrown in the backseat
of a Pasadena police car,
and they're all running around
the mortuary
looking for stuff,
and they left empty-handed,
and we don't know
what they were looking for.
[dramatic music playing]
[David Geary]
He was in the back of the car.
He was, you know, very aware
that he was performing.
He could be scary,
he could be charming.
And in that particular instance,
you know, as I'm saying
waving goodbye to him
he made this crazed face.
Like Charles Manson, you know?
Looked like
a homicidal maniac.
My boss said,
"Oh, we can't use that picture.
He looks horrible."
And I said, "He is horrible."
Come on. This is him.
This is what he did.
We didn't ask him
to do anything.
This is, you know,
one of his expressions,
and he looks nuts.
[soft mysterious
music playing]
[reporter] San Bernardino
County investigators
returned to the ceramics
building last night
with shovels
and a search warrant.
But authorities would not say
if they recovered
any more partially cremated
bodies.
The Hesperia building was owned
by the Sconce family.
[indistinct chatter]
Sconce and his father
are accused
of environmental violations
and grand theft.
They're accused of taking
gold fillings
from bodies that were cremated,
charges they say
are absolutely ridiculous.
There were no improprieties with
the operation either in Altadena
or the subsequent operation
in Hesperia.
And we've been really,
really misquoted,
misunderstood, and
and just crucified in the press
for about a week.
[reporter]
Both were arrested last week
and released on bail.
[detective] The investigation is
nowhere complete at this time.
It's a very involved case,
and will take a lot of time
to, um, establish
certain information.
[Darlynn Branton-Stoa]
One day, I was going
to the grocery store,
and I picked up the LA Times,
and I read about
the Lamb Funeral Home scandal.
I about fell down in
the parking lot, I did not know.
And I was shocked.
I was devastated that they
desecrated my father like this.
I can't think of the words
to describe how I feel
[reporter] Daughter Darlynn
says before he died
of a heart attack
two years ago,
Branton asked that
his body be cremated,
the ashes distributed
to members of his family.
But the Lamb crematory service
allegedly cremated his body
with others in the same oven,
commingling the ashes.
I have what I thought
was my father's ashes here,
but apparently, they are not
my father's ashes.
[birdsong]
[Louis Quinones] I had been
working for the Sconces,
say, maybe seven,
eight months
as a truck driver, delivering,
picking up,
uh, human remains.
When I got to the mortuary
and Johnny comes out and says,
"We got busted,"
I felt relieved.
Like [sighs]
Finally, you know, finally.
You know, "We got busted,
we got busted!"
And I said, uh,
"Good, that's awesome."
[upbeat jazzy music playing]
[Johnny speaking]
When I went to go get my stuff
out of Hesperia
and move back home,
got home at 2:00 in the morning.
They were waiting for me
across the street.
[reporter]
Sheriff's investigators
in San Bernardino County today
announced the arrest
of another suspect
in connection
with the operation
of an illegal crematorium
in the desert town of Hesperia.
This person
who was arrested yesterday
is a John Daniel, uh,
Pol-- Pollerana.
[Brad Sallard]
They arrested everybody
that worked at the mortuary.
They arrested everybody
who was down there
because it was a shotgun effect.
Everybody they saw,
they arrested,
and then sorted it out later.
Got me too, you know.
They detained me
for about three hours
and kept asking me the same
questions over and over again.
-[indistinct chatter]
-[bars clanging]
And finally,
I think to scare me,
they put me
in general population
for about an hour.
[dramatic music playing]
And it scared me.
[laughing]
But-- and I told him, I said,
"You-- you tell me
what you want me to tell you,
and I'll tell you,
I want outta here."
[prisoners shouting]
[Johnny speaking]
[dramatic music continues]
[chuckles]
[former employee speaking]
[curious music playing]
[David Geary]
I couldn't get David to talk,
or Jerry Sconce, or Laurieanne.
[office phones ringing]
But in the meantime,
my phone was just ringing
off the hook
with ex-employees
who wanted to say,
"Hey, let me tell you
about this place."
And they had some
wild tales to tell.
They were talking about pulling
the gold out of the teeth
and David's attitude
toward the bodies,
almost gleefully doing deeds
that would really shock
most people.
I really don't remember him
being nice
about anything to anybody,
especially a dead body.
[dark, eerie music playing]
He'd pick up a body like this,
you know, like a book,
and he's walking around
like that, you know.
He would talk to 'em, like,
"What happened to you, huh?"
Bah-- you know,
slap 'em a little bit,
or-- or touch 'em on the belly.
How sick is that?
That's his sense of humor,
very cold.
[David Geary]
Most of David's employees
were glad to-- to be able
to talk about this stuff.
But they were scared
because they said
this guy had a long history
of hurting people.
[tense music playing]
[bird squawking]
[David Dicus] At that
point in time, all we had
was the cremation of bodies.
Those would all have been,
uh, at-- at best,
maybe some misdemeanors,
maybe some environmental
health issues.
Unless we had some felonies
to work with
to drive the case on,
we wouldn't have enough
to bring about
some type of prosecution.
[ominous music playing]
[Skip Jones] There was
a task force that I recall
being part of
that included, uh, the police,
um, uh, district attorney,
um, probably a representative
from the cemetery board.
And they were very,
very interested in my work
because of the audit
that I had done
at the Lamb Funeral Home.
My job was to audit
pre-need trust accounts.
Pre-need's just going in
and discussing
with the funeral director
exactly what your needs are,
and paying for it
prior to the demise.
The funeral director
then is charged
with safekeeping those monies.
And there are certain rules
that go along with that.
[birdsong]
Well, the prior year
in 1986, I'd just went out
to the Lamb Funeral Home
to do a routine audit
of their trust funds.
I just went in
like I normally do.
Sport coat, tie, briefcase,
state of California.
I recall Laurieanne Lamb
sitting at the front desk.
[light music playing]
That was the first time
I ever saw her.
And as many years ago as it is,
I can recall it
like it was yesterday.
She kinda had poofy hair,
and there might have been
a light shining behind her,
because honestly,
in my lifetime,
that's the closest
I've ever seen to an aura.
I mean, I just went,
"Oh, my God."
She was just different.
She was just
the most perfect person
to do what she did,
and her-- her manner
was just so--
it wasn't maudlin,
it was just, "All I wanna do
is just take care of families.
I just wanna counsel 'em."
[light music continues]
That was her reason for being,
was to just serve families
in their time of grief.
She just glowed.
[chuckles]
Pretty amazing.
I'll never forget that.
But it turned out
that there was a problem.
Laurieanne had all of these
pre-need accounts
that she's taken money for
that weren't reported.
[curious music playing]
I think about 170 accounts.
That alone, bang,
that's a violation.
She's, "Oh my goodness.
Please tell me
what I'm supposed to do."
She's very upset that
they had done something wrong,
and wanted to do everything
to make it right.
I said, "You need to get
that money into an account,
and you've gotta start
reporting them to the board."
"No problem. And I'm not
gonna take any more money.
"I'm gonna set 'em up
in passbook accounts.
Uh, we're just trying to run
this business the best we can."
[chuckles]
Okay.
And you know, I mean, I had
no reason not to believe her.
[curious music continues]
Well, she never did
any of that.
And by the time I was meeting
with this task force,
we knew that Laurieanne
had raked about $100,000
worth of interest
off of those accounts.
That's grand theft.
Now, a district attorney
could charge 'em with a felony.
-[birds chirping]
-[leaves rustling]
[David Dicus] Once we discovered
the financial crimes
we went back into the station
and we discussed
what our next move
is going to be.
And in our office,
we had the photographs
from the funeral home,
along with other evidence.
And we had two great
deputy coroners.
They walked in,
they looked at the photographs.
What I thought was embalming,
they looked at immediately,
and guess what?
They said,
"They're harvesting body parts."
[spooky music playing]
They could look
at those photographs,
see the peeling
of the skin back.
Tissues were being removed.
Harvesting body parts,
it brought new dynamics
to our investigation.
[spooky music
continues playing]
[sighs]
Um
I witnessed a few extractions
of body parts.
It was common knowledge
around there
in the people that worked there
that they were
harvesting organs to-- to sell.
[dark, eerie music playing]
There was a room that had
a bunch of tools and junk.
That's where he did
the teeth extractions
and the organ harvesting.
[lights clicking]
[Louis] As soon as I'd bring
the truck in,
boom, they'd rush out there
and-- and check the bodies.
They would mark it "Whole"
or "Donor."
David would show up and,
"Okay, let's go to work."
[surgical tools whirring]
He had a couple of guys there
that they looked like doctors.
You know,
taking the eyeballs out,
and-- and-- and livers,
and hearts, and stuff.
I could see
what they were doing.
The body was all cut up.
[dramatic music playing]
[David Sconce] I was picking up
a body at a mortuary,
and there was this guy,
George Bristol,
I didn't know who he was,
but he was back there
and he was doing something,
like, he had surgical equipment
on the table.
And I'm an embalmer,
and I knew that wasn't stuff
I'd ever seen before.
Okay, there's a thing
called a slit lamp
which actually mows the cornea
off your eyeball
in a-- in a hygienic kind of
a way that doesn't ruin it.
So, I-- I--
"Hey, what are you doing?"
And I met him,
and we started talking,
and he was working
for UCLA Doheny Eye Bank.
And I said,
"Well, dude, I get, like,
"pssh, probably 1,000
dead people a month
"through my facility, and--
and if only 100 of 'em
are viable, that's a whole lot
of corneas you can move."
So, George started doing some
research with me, and I formed
the Coastal International
Eye and Tissue Bank.
[David Geary]
David set up an operation
on the grounds
of the funeral home.
And he hired people
from established
organ-donation businesses
and established ties
with medical companies
all over the world.
[David Sconce]
We got the account back east
at Carolina Biological,
which I thought was great.
It was a pretty
good-sized deal.
Hundred for a heart,
hundred for a brain,
hundred for a set of lungs,
and all that.
Now, you can't sell
human tissue,
but you can bill people
for your time
in making it available, 'kay?
That's how you get around it.
And, I mean,
if you think about it,
why wouldn't you do it?
It doesn't make any sense to me
to waste stuff
when it can help other people.
[David Geary] They would
take skin from people
for burn victims.
Eyes-- not just corneas,
but whole eyes,
hearts, lungs, brains, bones.
They got $55
to cremate this corpse,
and now it's worth
all kinds of money.
Like car parts, you know,
like you strip a car down
and-- and sell it.
Every body, you know,
was all its own little goldmine.
[sea birds calling]
[waves softly crashing]
[sea birds continue calling]
[Nancy Hathorn]
My relationship with my dad
when I was very young,
it was mixed, frankly.
Um, I think he had a lot
of PTSD.
He was born in Germany.
He was an adolescent
the beginning of World War II.
He had a horrible life.
He was very rigid.
He drank a lot.
But I-- he did love us
really fiercely.
He really did, and you know,
the older he got,
the more he softened.
I just saw such a huge change
in him when I got married.
And when I became pregnant,
he was really
excited about that.
He would have been
a fantastic grandfather.
On September 20th, 1986,
he had a stroke and he died.
The Lamb family mortuary
handled the cremation.
We took a truck
out to the desert,
my mom, and my husband,
and my sister, and--
because that was his heart
and soul, out in the desert.
We said, you know,
all these nice things
and spread these ashes.
[wind whistling]
And then, when we find out
they just scooped up
whoever, whatever,
and that's what we left
in the desert.
And just
that was just so sad.
[somber music playing]
I believe it was
a few months later,
we were told what they had
taken from him.
It was just so--
again, you know,
astonishing that this
keeps getting worse,
you know,
that they took his brains,
his eyes, you-- you know.
We were all in shock,
in absolute shock.
My dad was floating around
in hospitals everywhere,
being picked at and studied,
and you know,
he didn't agree to that,
we didn't agree to that.
[ominous music playing]
[David Geary] I talked
to a lot of family members,
and they were very rattled.
They were angry,
they were upset.
I found out
actually on the news.
It just-- like somebody
hit you over the head
with a-- with a--
with a bat.
I never discussed anything
about donating organs
or anything like that,
which I would have
absolutely go against.
[David Geary] A lot
of the families were bitter,
especially toward Laurieanne.
She was the face
of the funeral home.
She dealt with the bereaved.
She advised people,
gave them
the-- the papers to sign.
Everyone was wondering
if she knew what was going on.
[Louis]
I looked at her as my mom.
She was so sweet.
You know, she's willing to make
you a cake, if you wanted it.
But-- but, uh,
on the other hand,
there was a very dark side
on-- on that woman.
Looks are deceiving,
let me tell you.
[gentle eerie music playing]
I remember going
to the family's house
picking up their--
their grandpa,
and everybody is just crying.
And Laurieanne called me
on the radio and said
"Hon, if the body's still warm,
"open up his eyelids
and see if his eyes
"are watery, or are they dry?
"And if they're dry,
there's a bottle
"in the glove compartment.
"Get that bottle
and put a couple of drops
in each eye,
and then call me."
After that, it was every day.
"Is the body warm, honey?
Is the body warm?"
She was very pious, churchy,
and people trusted her.
Apparently,
she kept ashes in her office.
She had a chart all worked out.
How much ash to put in an urn,
how much a-- an adult male
would be,
what an adult female would be,
a baby.
There were babies
involved in this thing.
Can you imagine?
[former employee speaking]
[sinister music playing]
The side hustle,
the teeth and the gold,
Jerry, I'm sure, had been
doing that from day one,
since he married
into that family.
One day, I saw Jerry
rooting around
in this person's mouth.
He just reaches in and pulls
a couple of gold teeth out.
Puts 'em in a Styrofoam cup,
and he goes,
"That's how we can afford
to pay you what we pay you."
[flames roaring]
[David Sconce]
Multiple cremations, gold, ash.
My parents did all of that
before me, all of that.
-[interviewer] Well
-Yeah.
My mom's dad
did that before it.
My grandfather, Lawrence Lamb,
had a lot of money.
He was very business-oriented.
I have one thing
I never forgot.
[birdsong]
It was Christmas,
and all the families
were all together,
uh, at the house
on-- on Orange Grove,
at my grandparents' home.
[somber music playing]
I'm a little kid,
and I remember being positioned
with all the cousins,
and all the family behind.
My grandfather's
standing out there,
and he had a camera,
and he said,
"Smile. Say 'money.'"
He didn't say "cheese."
He said, "Say 'money.'"
[eerie music playing]
This was learned
through generations.
So, if you wanna say,
"fruit of the poisonous tree,"
there you go.
[eerie music
continues playing]
[music fades out]
[traffic noise]
[David Geary]
As this criminal investigation
into David Sconce continued
the police found
all this incremental stuff,
but it got, you know,
progressively worse.
It came out
that he had his guys
beat up these rival
funeral home directors,
several of them.
[curious music playing]
And in particular,
there was this
Tim Waters guy
who was savagely beaten up
and wound up dead.
So, police started digging.
And they had a lucky break.
[dramatic music playing]
It-- it turns out, the night
Tim Waters was beaten up
some neighbor saw two guys
sitting outside of his place
of business in Burbank
eating and dumping
their trash out the window.
And give 'em credit,
the Burbank police
picked this stuff up
and put it away
in an evidence locker.
It sat there for, Jesus,
two and a half years?
[lights clicking]
And when things
started to unravel,
well, they said,
"Let's check on this
evidence that we found."
[suspenseful music playing]
The clearest prints
were on a small carton of milk.
And sure enough,
there's Danny Galambos'
fingerprints.
All roads led back
to David Sconce.
They were clearly
known associates.
[Andre]
They didn't know who we were
till they got to Danny Galambos.
They brought him in,
they asked him questions,
and he was singing
like a canary,
corroborated all the information
about the Tim Waters beating.
And they knew that the guy died.
[David Geary]
Once Danny Galambos
was arrested,
he told the police
David told him,
"I poisoned this guy
and he died."
And Danny said,
you know, that David
had bragged about this to him.
[dark music playing]
So, the DA's office says,
"Hey, you know,
we should take a look at it."
Back in 1985,
when Tim Waters, uh, died
the medical examiner
did an autopsy.
It was ruled a heart attack.
They found nothing suspicious.
But the thing is, they didn't
look for anything suspicious.
But they did keep
tissue samples.
And then, in 1987,
the DA's office
orders these tissue samples
to be analyzed.
[curious music playing]
[Ashley Dunn] They didn't do
the toxicology report
when Tim Waters died.
It was only when
this came up again
that they conducted those tests.
And they found an extract
of poison made from oleander.
[suspenseful music playing]
Oleander bushes are everywhere
in Southern California.
At the end of streets, houses
have them surrounding them.
Around my house at the time
in Pasadena,
there were tons
of oleander bushes.
[Skip] They found that
it was oleander poisoning.
It's chilling.
Now, this is all just w--
hearsay.
But the word was,
David has lunch with him
someplace in The Valley.
Tim Waters dies.
And people said,
"If David Sconce
"is gonna buy you lunch,
just tell him
you've already eaten."
[suspenseful music
continues playing]
[music fades out]
[David Geary] The police
were looking into all of this.
But in the meantime,
the district attorney
was ready to file the charges
against David and his parents
for the offenses
at the funeral home.
[David Sconce]
Roger Diamond, my attorney,
said that, uh, my parents
and I should show up
because they're gonna
file charges.
And okay, so we all drive
to Pasadena like we're told.
[dramatic, suspenseful
music playing]
[reporter]
David Sconce and his parents
are accused of embezzling funds
from prepaid funeral accounts,
of illegally removing
and selling body tissue,
and of cremating bodies
together
without the consent
from next of kin.
[David Sconce]
So, we appear in court,
and we're each supposed
to have a $5,000 bail.
Well, I'm 31 years old.
I've never been
in trouble, ever.
My parents posted their bail.
And when they wanted
to post my bail,
the district attorney,
Walt Lewis,
went over to Roger and he said,
"Hey, I'm sorry I had to lie
to you about David's bail."
'Cause he'd raised it up
to a half a million dollars.
[David Geary] His attorney,
Roger Diamond, went nuts.
This bail request for $500,000
is really shocking.
I don't believe
And then, the judge said,
"Hey, if it were up to me,
"it'd be a lot higher,
"because he's,
A, a flight risk,
and B, he-- he's a menace
to society."
[dramatic, suspenseful
music continues]
[David Sconce]
So, they swoop in
and took me right to jail.
[engine rumbling]
[Scott Brougham]
I was housed on "D Row"
in the LA County Jail
in what they call
"the high-power section,"
which is where they keep
who they consider, uh,
influential gang members,
uh, celebrities.
So, everybody from Sean Penn
to some of the most horrendous
murderers you've ever seen,
all on this one tier.
[dramatic music playing]
[indistinct chatter]
And we always knew, like,
who was coming on the tier.
So, Sconce becomes
an inmate on D Row.
And he appeared to be this
unassuming Richie Cunningham,
just a white-bred kid
that didn't belong.
[dramatic music continues]
He wasn't a gangster.
He was just a little pussy
that came in off the streets.
[David Sconce]
My very first night in jail,
I was terrified.
Terrified!
[laughing and exclaiming]
Man, I was crying for somebody
to bail me out.
[Scott] So, David became
like my next-door neighbor.
And we discussed everything--
me, him, lifestyles.
He did admit
to commingling bodies,
but he said,
"Well, everybody does that."
You know, you throw
three or four
in whatever, the cremator,
or whatever it's called,
and divvy up the ashes,
and everything's good.
But there came a point
where you could just see
when he was telling stories
where he would become
either overly animated,
or kind of excited about shit
that the average human being
would go, "What the fuck?"
And I'm a criminal,
I'm not some sadist.
Um, whereas I would say his mask
started to come down.
[prisoners chattering]
And he, at one point,
I recall, told me
that he had--
I-- I wanna say
it was an Anarchist Cookbook.
But he had done some research,
reading books on how
to kill people
without leaving,
you know, signs.
[ominous music playing]
I remember David telling me
about putting something
in somebody's spaghetti
at a restaurant.
But I couldn't tell you
whose it was.
And was kinda proud
of the fact
that he had
outsmarted everybody,
which is the equivalent of
"Yeah, I did it, but they're
never gonna fuckin' get me."
[engine revving]
[Andre]
I told the DA
David Sconce would talk
about the things
that he wanted done
in an open setting.
From what I understand,
he had a-- a book
that had different formulas
for poisons.
He had this book,
and he had it
in the car with him,
and he would read things to me.
If we were riding together,
he'd read things to me.
It was called
The Poor Man's James Bond.
[soft eerie music playing]
And it had sneaky ways of--
of hurting and killing people.
And he s-- it was--
it was cute.
He would talk all the time
and read all this stuff,
and, "Listen to this,
and listen to this."
I really never figured
he would do anything like that.
They asked me, and I said,
"I know he likes
"to read that stuff
and talk about that stuff,
"but I-- I think he's all talk.
I don't think that he'd really
ever do anything like that."
So, I-- I was defensive
of him at that point.
But they found the book
in his car,
and I-- I found
the book his car.
I read it.
[eerie music
continues playing]
[Andre] When he mentioned
the oleander, it was like,
"Oh, this stuff,
you can't trace it.
It's a natural you know,
so nobody will ever know."
[former employee speaking]
[ominous sting]
-[ominous music playing]
-[wings fluttering]
[sighs heavily]
[dramatic music playing]
♪♪
[curious music playing]
[Andre Augustine] Tim Waters
had put two and two together
and knew what David Sconce
was doing.
He knew that on
a crematorium side
he was doing something that
was either illegal or immoral.
[David Geary]
The rumors were that Tim Waters
had gone out to eat with David
right before he died.
People were saying
that David had had him killed.
[Andre]
After Tim Waters had died
without an obstruction
to his success
David Sconce, he felt like
he could do anything.
[dramatic music playing]
[David Geary]
David had grand plans.
He had designs on, you know,
the entire West.
And he went out and he
solicited a lot more business.
[former employee speaking]
[flames whooshing]
[dramatic music
continues playing]
[music intensifies]
[music fades out]
[Johnny Pollerana speaking]
The shelves would be full.
The freezer would be full.
And I could never catch up.
Never.
And in return, if he needed me
to do something, I did it.
Except I wasn't gonna
beat nobody up,
I wasn't gonna kill anybody,
and I wasn't gonna do
anything illegal other
than what we were doing.
"There's nothing gonna happen,"
and everything happened.
That Murphy's Law thing,
you know?
If it can go wrong,
it's gonna go wrong.
And it really went wrong.
[chains rattling]
[former employee] One night,
I was a runner
at the crematorium.
[flames whooshing]
[fire roaring]
[flames whooshing]
[ominous music playing]
[David Sconce]
I forget who called me.
I think Johnny was the one
who called me, I think.
Yeah, "Whoa, what do you mean,
it burned down?"
[ominous music
continues playing]
I found out these guys smoked
their dope, and they left!
It's just
[sighs] There's no words.
There's no words.
[wind whistling]
[Jay Brown]
You know, after the fire,
David's business
didn't shut down.
He was still picking up cases,
and yet everybody knew
that his facility
had burnt down.
[mysterious music playing]
[David Sconce] After the fire
happened at the crematory
I didn't stop.
But nobody could figure out
where I was cremating
my bodies.
[birdsong]
[soft eerie music playing]
[Richard Wales]
In 1986, I was working
as the Air Quality Engineer
for the San Bernardino County
Air Pollution Control Agency.
My job was to protect
the environment
for the health and welfare
of the citizens
that live in the area.
We had received complaints
from the citizenry
in the high desert
in the Hesperia area
about a facility.
The name was Oscar Ceramics.
The owner was David Sconce.
They claimed
they were making ceramic tiles
for NASA and the space industry.
We had a business owner
in the area
complaining about smell
smoke coming out
of the building,
and even sometimes flames
leaping out of the stack.
He was very adamant
that he smelled burning bodies,
burning flesh.
He was in one
of the military units
that had, uh, liberated one
of the concentration camps,
I believe it was
Auschwitz itself.
And so, he knew this odor to him
was the same odor
that he had smelled then.
[eerie music continues]
We just knew
there's something going on.
[Johnny speaking]
And all the things
that followed with it
were stuff that were gonna
get us in trouble.
It's starting to get like,
what are we doing?
We're going way, way, way,
way, way overboard.
I mean, it's not like
I'm gonna stop doing it.
I've already been doing it.
But it was like a lot.
[eerie music
continues playing]
[David Dicus] My name is
David Dicus, I was a sergeant
with the San Bernardino
Sheriff's Department.
I, uh, was assigned to run
the detective bureau.
We had a couple of our patrolmen
called out to the scene.
There was a ceramics factory in
Hesperia called Oscar Ceramics.
There was smoke coming
underneath the doors.
One of the patrolmen
called us up and said,
"I-- this-- this case
seems like it's got legs."
[ominous music playing]
We rolled out to the scene.
When we first arrived,
nobody would come out.
Then, once we had
a pretty good presence
between law enforcement
and the fire,
um, he ultimately did come out,
a Hispanic gentleman.
[ominous music continues]
[Johnny speaking]
And
finally, the San Bernardino
County Sheriff came.
That's when they got to come in.
Otherwise, I was stalling
these guys as long as I could.
[Richard]
The operator in there,
he was working in a--
a Camaro.
He did not sit in the building.
I asked him why.
He said, "It's too smoky
in there to work."
He actually had a-- a small TV
and the phone line
into his car sitting out
by the door of the building.
Johnny claimed to us
he did not know
what was going on in the kilns.
He said somebody else
loaded the kilns.
When they're loaded,
he gets a call to come up
and fire the kilns off.
He was very nervous,
he did call Mr. Sconce,
supposably,
and talked with him.
And I think--
I think at that point,
David must have known
that the gig was up.
[Johnny speaking]
He says, "I don't know,
but hide the stuff."
I go, [scoffs]
"David, we can't--
"We can't hide any more things.
It's too late.
We're in trouble now."
So, I hung up with him,
I went outside, got the key,
opened the door.
They came in.
[tense tones playing]
[David Dicus]
One we got inside
instantaneous, you can tell
there's something wrong,
uh, from the smell of it all.
When you first walk in,
there's soot
all over the walls.
Uh, the soot's so oily,
it's sticking to your shoes.
If you touch anything,
it would get on your clothing.
And we're all wearing suits,
so we tried to be
as careful as possible.
Uh, there were barrels
of prosthesis around,
because prosthesis don't burn.
It really kinda took you back.
[Johnny speaking]
I go, "I'm not opening
that oven, you can't make me.
"You open it.
You wanna see what's in there?
Open it."
[fire rumbling]
they stopped it
from being cremated.
So, it's just like a bunch
of bodies still in there.
So, I-- I went outside,
you know.
I didn't want to see all that.
[tense music playing]
[David Dicus]
We took the opportunity to open
one of the kilns to see
what was inside,
and there were multiple bones
from the whole process,
even some flesh that
had not been, uh,
totally burned yet.
[Richard]
Upon opening the kilns,
we saw burning material
falling out.
I did see what looked like
a human skull in there.
[tense music continues]
[David Dicus]
In front of the kilns,
they had cut trenches
about four inches wide
that ran out into the back
of the facility,
uh, primarily to capture
the human fat
that was burning off
of all these bodies.
[eerie jazz music playing]
[Richard]
This is beyond anything
I could really comprehend
in my own mind.
It's a surreal situation.
Do you really believe
what you're seeing,
even though you're seeing it?
[eerie jazz music
continues playing]
Uh, you just--
you kinda wonder
what type of people were doing
this type of operation.
[interviewer speaking]
Pfft, I don't know,
it was probably close to 200.
Right around in there,
150, 200 when they--
when they came
and shut the ovens down.
At a time.
Yeah.
[ominous music playing]
[David Sconce] Because of
the fire in Pasadena,
I used Hesperia
before it was really ready.
And that was a bad choice.
I made that choice.
I'm the only one
to blame for that.
Yeah, I could say,
well, I wanted to keep
all my people employed.
So, I needed to not
interrupt anything
that was working
towards the ultimate end.
But it doesn't justify
what I did, see?
I should have been more selfish
and shut everything down
and done it right.
But I was in a hurry.
Permits.
Conditional use permits.
Sure, that was still
gonna go on.
That was still gonna go on.
[soft mysterious
music playing]
I was working late
at the office,
and a story came over the wire
from the San Bernardino Sun.
It was a very short story.
The guy they said
was responsible
was David Sconce of Pasadena.
I thought, okay, he's local.
And I just got out
the phone book.
This is all pre-computers.
And I started calling people
named Sconce,
and there were a number
of them.
I asked questions about
this illegal crematorium.
About the fourth one,
the guy picked up the phone
and he just started
screaming and yelling,
you know, "Fuck you!
Who the fuck are you?"
And I thought,
"Okay, this is him,"
you know, "I got him."
[soft mysterious
music playing]
I found out he owned
Pasadena Crematorium.
And I called the number
in the phone book
and they answered the phone,
"Lamb Funeral Home."
They had the same
telephone number.
I knew the Lambs
were the Lambs.
They were prominent people,
I knew who they were.
So, I went to one
of the editors,
and I said,
"Something is happening here,
and it could be pretty wild."
So, we did a story
the following day,
which I wrote, and it said,
"Here he is, David Sconce,
and he's, you know, affiliated
with the Lamb Funeral Home."
I started to get phone calls.
People were very supportive
of the Lambs
and were, you know, outraged
that we would be
disparaging them in any way.
You know, "You should be
ashamed of yourself.
You shouldn't be
writing about this."
[birds chirping]
[David Dicus] At that point
in time, I really did not know
what crimes had been violated,
other than maybe
the pollution end of it,
environmental health.
But from a criminal standpoint,
we really didn't know
what we had.
We did serve the search warrant
in Pasadena
at the Lamb Funeral Home.
That was our first
search warrant.
And I had an opportunity
to walk around the place,
had an opportunity
to meet Laurieanne.
The sweetest lady
you ever want to talk to.
I asked her lots of questions
about the operation,
and she was more
than willing to talk.
She had no concept
of what was going on.
I saw the business office,
and there were photographs
on the walls.
Embalming photographs.
We started collecting evidence.
[camera clicking]
Then, we went back
into their cold storage.
[lights clacking]
We saw hundreds of bodies
-[camera clicking]
-wrapped up in cardboard.
-There were body parts.
-[camera clicking]
It was ghastly.
And I'm thinking,
these people are lawfully dead.
What do we really have here?
Was there more
criminal activity going on?
And who else was involved?
Our second search warrant
was on Lamb Senior's home.
[birds chirping]
Just like approaching
his house,
it's a big, beautiful house.
[ambient street
and traffic noise]
[solemn music playing]
Beautiful furnishings,
very cooperative people.
These people
had to have resources,
had to have some influence.
I got the impression
that Lamb Senior
was a stand-up guy.
He was a part
of that community forever.
He probably did cremations
one at a time,
and somehow,
the family members went awry.
[Elie Estephan] Lamb, the elder,
he was a decent man.
Straight as an arrow,
everything by the book.
[solemn music continues]
In this business,
you don't mass cremate.
It's illegal, it's a state law,
and it's-- it's inhuman.
And anti-everything
I believe in
is not to treat
a loved one of a family
with dignity and respect.
So, we don't mass cremate.
We can't.
All of a sudden,
Dave Sconce's case
blew up wide open.
Other mortuaries
start see-- reading it.
Supposedly, Lamb told
his daughter, actually,
"Your son will ruin my name."
[ominous music playing]
[siren wailing]
[David Sconce]
When the first search
of the premises took place
I got thrown in the backseat
of a Pasadena police car,
and they're all running around
the mortuary
looking for stuff,
and they left empty-handed,
and we don't know
what they were looking for.
[dramatic music playing]
[David Geary]
He was in the back of the car.
He was, you know, very aware
that he was performing.
He could be scary,
he could be charming.
And in that particular instance,
you know, as I'm saying
waving goodbye to him
he made this crazed face.
Like Charles Manson, you know?
Looked like
a homicidal maniac.
My boss said,
"Oh, we can't use that picture.
He looks horrible."
And I said, "He is horrible."
Come on. This is him.
This is what he did.
We didn't ask him
to do anything.
This is, you know,
one of his expressions,
and he looks nuts.
[soft mysterious
music playing]
[reporter] San Bernardino
County investigators
returned to the ceramics
building last night
with shovels
and a search warrant.
But authorities would not say
if they recovered
any more partially cremated
bodies.
The Hesperia building was owned
by the Sconce family.
[indistinct chatter]
Sconce and his father
are accused
of environmental violations
and grand theft.
They're accused of taking
gold fillings
from bodies that were cremated,
charges they say
are absolutely ridiculous.
There were no improprieties with
the operation either in Altadena
or the subsequent operation
in Hesperia.
And we've been really,
really misquoted,
misunderstood, and
and just crucified in the press
for about a week.
[reporter]
Both were arrested last week
and released on bail.
[detective] The investigation is
nowhere complete at this time.
It's a very involved case,
and will take a lot of time
to, um, establish
certain information.
[Darlynn Branton-Stoa]
One day, I was going
to the grocery store,
and I picked up the LA Times,
and I read about
the Lamb Funeral Home scandal.
I about fell down in
the parking lot, I did not know.
And I was shocked.
I was devastated that they
desecrated my father like this.
I can't think of the words
to describe how I feel
[reporter] Daughter Darlynn
says before he died
of a heart attack
two years ago,
Branton asked that
his body be cremated,
the ashes distributed
to members of his family.
But the Lamb crematory service
allegedly cremated his body
with others in the same oven,
commingling the ashes.
I have what I thought
was my father's ashes here,
but apparently, they are not
my father's ashes.
[birdsong]
[Louis Quinones] I had been
working for the Sconces,
say, maybe seven,
eight months
as a truck driver, delivering,
picking up,
uh, human remains.
When I got to the mortuary
and Johnny comes out and says,
"We got busted,"
I felt relieved.
Like [sighs]
Finally, you know, finally.
You know, "We got busted,
we got busted!"
And I said, uh,
"Good, that's awesome."
[upbeat jazzy music playing]
[Johnny speaking]
When I went to go get my stuff
out of Hesperia
and move back home,
got home at 2:00 in the morning.
They were waiting for me
across the street.
[reporter]
Sheriff's investigators
in San Bernardino County today
announced the arrest
of another suspect
in connection
with the operation
of an illegal crematorium
in the desert town of Hesperia.
This person
who was arrested yesterday
is a John Daniel, uh,
Pol-- Pollerana.
[Brad Sallard]
They arrested everybody
that worked at the mortuary.
They arrested everybody
who was down there
because it was a shotgun effect.
Everybody they saw,
they arrested,
and then sorted it out later.
Got me too, you know.
They detained me
for about three hours
and kept asking me the same
questions over and over again.
-[indistinct chatter]
-[bars clanging]
And finally,
I think to scare me,
they put me
in general population
for about an hour.
[dramatic music playing]
And it scared me.
[laughing]
But-- and I told him, I said,
"You-- you tell me
what you want me to tell you,
and I'll tell you,
I want outta here."
[prisoners shouting]
[Johnny speaking]
[dramatic music continues]
[chuckles]
[former employee speaking]
[curious music playing]
[David Geary]
I couldn't get David to talk,
or Jerry Sconce, or Laurieanne.
[office phones ringing]
But in the meantime,
my phone was just ringing
off the hook
with ex-employees
who wanted to say,
"Hey, let me tell you
about this place."
And they had some
wild tales to tell.
They were talking about pulling
the gold out of the teeth
and David's attitude
toward the bodies,
almost gleefully doing deeds
that would really shock
most people.
I really don't remember him
being nice
about anything to anybody,
especially a dead body.
[dark, eerie music playing]
He'd pick up a body like this,
you know, like a book,
and he's walking around
like that, you know.
He would talk to 'em, like,
"What happened to you, huh?"
Bah-- you know,
slap 'em a little bit,
or-- or touch 'em on the belly.
How sick is that?
That's his sense of humor,
very cold.
[David Geary]
Most of David's employees
were glad to-- to be able
to talk about this stuff.
But they were scared
because they said
this guy had a long history
of hurting people.
[tense music playing]
[bird squawking]
[David Dicus] At that
point in time, all we had
was the cremation of bodies.
Those would all have been,
uh, at-- at best,
maybe some misdemeanors,
maybe some environmental
health issues.
Unless we had some felonies
to work with
to drive the case on,
we wouldn't have enough
to bring about
some type of prosecution.
[ominous music playing]
[Skip Jones] There was
a task force that I recall
being part of
that included, uh, the police,
um, uh, district attorney,
um, probably a representative
from the cemetery board.
And they were very,
very interested in my work
because of the audit
that I had done
at the Lamb Funeral Home.
My job was to audit
pre-need trust accounts.
Pre-need's just going in
and discussing
with the funeral director
exactly what your needs are,
and paying for it
prior to the demise.
The funeral director
then is charged
with safekeeping those monies.
And there are certain rules
that go along with that.
[birdsong]
Well, the prior year
in 1986, I'd just went out
to the Lamb Funeral Home
to do a routine audit
of their trust funds.
I just went in
like I normally do.
Sport coat, tie, briefcase,
state of California.
I recall Laurieanne Lamb
sitting at the front desk.
[light music playing]
That was the first time
I ever saw her.
And as many years ago as it is,
I can recall it
like it was yesterday.
She kinda had poofy hair,
and there might have been
a light shining behind her,
because honestly,
in my lifetime,
that's the closest
I've ever seen to an aura.
I mean, I just went,
"Oh, my God."
She was just different.
She was just
the most perfect person
to do what she did,
and her-- her manner
was just so--
it wasn't maudlin,
it was just, "All I wanna do
is just take care of families.
I just wanna counsel 'em."
[light music continues]
That was her reason for being,
was to just serve families
in their time of grief.
She just glowed.
[chuckles]
Pretty amazing.
I'll never forget that.
But it turned out
that there was a problem.
Laurieanne had all of these
pre-need accounts
that she's taken money for
that weren't reported.
[curious music playing]
I think about 170 accounts.
That alone, bang,
that's a violation.
She's, "Oh my goodness.
Please tell me
what I'm supposed to do."
She's very upset that
they had done something wrong,
and wanted to do everything
to make it right.
I said, "You need to get
that money into an account,
and you've gotta start
reporting them to the board."
"No problem. And I'm not
gonna take any more money.
"I'm gonna set 'em up
in passbook accounts.
Uh, we're just trying to run
this business the best we can."
[chuckles]
Okay.
And you know, I mean, I had
no reason not to believe her.
[curious music continues]
Well, she never did
any of that.
And by the time I was meeting
with this task force,
we knew that Laurieanne
had raked about $100,000
worth of interest
off of those accounts.
That's grand theft.
Now, a district attorney
could charge 'em with a felony.
-[birds chirping]
-[leaves rustling]
[David Dicus] Once we discovered
the financial crimes
we went back into the station
and we discussed
what our next move
is going to be.
And in our office,
we had the photographs
from the funeral home,
along with other evidence.
And we had two great
deputy coroners.
They walked in,
they looked at the photographs.
What I thought was embalming,
they looked at immediately,
and guess what?
They said,
"They're harvesting body parts."
[spooky music playing]
They could look
at those photographs,
see the peeling
of the skin back.
Tissues were being removed.
Harvesting body parts,
it brought new dynamics
to our investigation.
[spooky music
continues playing]
[sighs]
Um
I witnessed a few extractions
of body parts.
It was common knowledge
around there
in the people that worked there
that they were
harvesting organs to-- to sell.
[dark, eerie music playing]
There was a room that had
a bunch of tools and junk.
That's where he did
the teeth extractions
and the organ harvesting.
[lights clicking]
[Louis] As soon as I'd bring
the truck in,
boom, they'd rush out there
and-- and check the bodies.
They would mark it "Whole"
or "Donor."
David would show up and,
"Okay, let's go to work."
[surgical tools whirring]
He had a couple of guys there
that they looked like doctors.
You know,
taking the eyeballs out,
and-- and-- and livers,
and hearts, and stuff.
I could see
what they were doing.
The body was all cut up.
[dramatic music playing]
[David Sconce] I was picking up
a body at a mortuary,
and there was this guy,
George Bristol,
I didn't know who he was,
but he was back there
and he was doing something,
like, he had surgical equipment
on the table.
And I'm an embalmer,
and I knew that wasn't stuff
I'd ever seen before.
Okay, there's a thing
called a slit lamp
which actually mows the cornea
off your eyeball
in a-- in a hygienic kind of
a way that doesn't ruin it.
So, I-- I--
"Hey, what are you doing?"
And I met him,
and we started talking,
and he was working
for UCLA Doheny Eye Bank.
And I said,
"Well, dude, I get, like,
"pssh, probably 1,000
dead people a month
"through my facility, and--
and if only 100 of 'em
are viable, that's a whole lot
of corneas you can move."
So, George started doing some
research with me, and I formed
the Coastal International
Eye and Tissue Bank.
[David Geary]
David set up an operation
on the grounds
of the funeral home.
And he hired people
from established
organ-donation businesses
and established ties
with medical companies
all over the world.
[David Sconce]
We got the account back east
at Carolina Biological,
which I thought was great.
It was a pretty
good-sized deal.
Hundred for a heart,
hundred for a brain,
hundred for a set of lungs,
and all that.
Now, you can't sell
human tissue,
but you can bill people
for your time
in making it available, 'kay?
That's how you get around it.
And, I mean,
if you think about it,
why wouldn't you do it?
It doesn't make any sense to me
to waste stuff
when it can help other people.
[David Geary] They would
take skin from people
for burn victims.
Eyes-- not just corneas,
but whole eyes,
hearts, lungs, brains, bones.
They got $55
to cremate this corpse,
and now it's worth
all kinds of money.
Like car parts, you know,
like you strip a car down
and-- and sell it.
Every body, you know,
was all its own little goldmine.
[sea birds calling]
[waves softly crashing]
[sea birds continue calling]
[Nancy Hathorn]
My relationship with my dad
when I was very young,
it was mixed, frankly.
Um, I think he had a lot
of PTSD.
He was born in Germany.
He was an adolescent
the beginning of World War II.
He had a horrible life.
He was very rigid.
He drank a lot.
But I-- he did love us
really fiercely.
He really did, and you know,
the older he got,
the more he softened.
I just saw such a huge change
in him when I got married.
And when I became pregnant,
he was really
excited about that.
He would have been
a fantastic grandfather.
On September 20th, 1986,
he had a stroke and he died.
The Lamb family mortuary
handled the cremation.
We took a truck
out to the desert,
my mom, and my husband,
and my sister, and--
because that was his heart
and soul, out in the desert.
We said, you know,
all these nice things
and spread these ashes.
[wind whistling]
And then, when we find out
they just scooped up
whoever, whatever,
and that's what we left
in the desert.
And just
that was just so sad.
[somber music playing]
I believe it was
a few months later,
we were told what they had
taken from him.
It was just so--
again, you know,
astonishing that this
keeps getting worse,
you know,
that they took his brains,
his eyes, you-- you know.
We were all in shock,
in absolute shock.
My dad was floating around
in hospitals everywhere,
being picked at and studied,
and you know,
he didn't agree to that,
we didn't agree to that.
[ominous music playing]
[David Geary] I talked
to a lot of family members,
and they were very rattled.
They were angry,
they were upset.
I found out
actually on the news.
It just-- like somebody
hit you over the head
with a-- with a--
with a bat.
I never discussed anything
about donating organs
or anything like that,
which I would have
absolutely go against.
[David Geary] A lot
of the families were bitter,
especially toward Laurieanne.
She was the face
of the funeral home.
She dealt with the bereaved.
She advised people,
gave them
the-- the papers to sign.
Everyone was wondering
if she knew what was going on.
[Louis]
I looked at her as my mom.
She was so sweet.
You know, she's willing to make
you a cake, if you wanted it.
But-- but, uh,
on the other hand,
there was a very dark side
on-- on that woman.
Looks are deceiving,
let me tell you.
[gentle eerie music playing]
I remember going
to the family's house
picking up their--
their grandpa,
and everybody is just crying.
And Laurieanne called me
on the radio and said
"Hon, if the body's still warm,
"open up his eyelids
and see if his eyes
"are watery, or are they dry?
"And if they're dry,
there's a bottle
"in the glove compartment.
"Get that bottle
and put a couple of drops
in each eye,
and then call me."
After that, it was every day.
"Is the body warm, honey?
Is the body warm?"
She was very pious, churchy,
and people trusted her.
Apparently,
she kept ashes in her office.
She had a chart all worked out.
How much ash to put in an urn,
how much a-- an adult male
would be,
what an adult female would be,
a baby.
There were babies
involved in this thing.
Can you imagine?
[former employee speaking]
[sinister music playing]
The side hustle,
the teeth and the gold,
Jerry, I'm sure, had been
doing that from day one,
since he married
into that family.
One day, I saw Jerry
rooting around
in this person's mouth.
He just reaches in and pulls
a couple of gold teeth out.
Puts 'em in a Styrofoam cup,
and he goes,
"That's how we can afford
to pay you what we pay you."
[flames roaring]
[David Sconce]
Multiple cremations, gold, ash.
My parents did all of that
before me, all of that.
-[interviewer] Well
-Yeah.
My mom's dad
did that before it.
My grandfather, Lawrence Lamb,
had a lot of money.
He was very business-oriented.
I have one thing
I never forgot.
[birdsong]
It was Christmas,
and all the families
were all together,
uh, at the house
on-- on Orange Grove,
at my grandparents' home.
[somber music playing]
I'm a little kid,
and I remember being positioned
with all the cousins,
and all the family behind.
My grandfather's
standing out there,
and he had a camera,
and he said,
"Smile. Say 'money.'"
He didn't say "cheese."
He said, "Say 'money.'"
[eerie music playing]
This was learned
through generations.
So, if you wanna say,
"fruit of the poisonous tree,"
there you go.
[eerie music
continues playing]
[music fades out]
[traffic noise]
[David Geary]
As this criminal investigation
into David Sconce continued
the police found
all this incremental stuff,
but it got, you know,
progressively worse.
It came out
that he had his guys
beat up these rival
funeral home directors,
several of them.
[curious music playing]
And in particular,
there was this
Tim Waters guy
who was savagely beaten up
and wound up dead.
So, police started digging.
And they had a lucky break.
[dramatic music playing]
It-- it turns out, the night
Tim Waters was beaten up
some neighbor saw two guys
sitting outside of his place
of business in Burbank
eating and dumping
their trash out the window.
And give 'em credit,
the Burbank police
picked this stuff up
and put it away
in an evidence locker.
It sat there for, Jesus,
two and a half years?
[lights clicking]
And when things
started to unravel,
well, they said,
"Let's check on this
evidence that we found."
[suspenseful music playing]
The clearest prints
were on a small carton of milk.
And sure enough,
there's Danny Galambos'
fingerprints.
All roads led back
to David Sconce.
They were clearly
known associates.
[Andre]
They didn't know who we were
till they got to Danny Galambos.
They brought him in,
they asked him questions,
and he was singing
like a canary,
corroborated all the information
about the Tim Waters beating.
And they knew that the guy died.
[David Geary]
Once Danny Galambos
was arrested,
he told the police
David told him,
"I poisoned this guy
and he died."
And Danny said,
you know, that David
had bragged about this to him.
[dark music playing]
So, the DA's office says,
"Hey, you know,
we should take a look at it."
Back in 1985,
when Tim Waters, uh, died
the medical examiner
did an autopsy.
It was ruled a heart attack.
They found nothing suspicious.
But the thing is, they didn't
look for anything suspicious.
But they did keep
tissue samples.
And then, in 1987,
the DA's office
orders these tissue samples
to be analyzed.
[curious music playing]
[Ashley Dunn] They didn't do
the toxicology report
when Tim Waters died.
It was only when
this came up again
that they conducted those tests.
And they found an extract
of poison made from oleander.
[suspenseful music playing]
Oleander bushes are everywhere
in Southern California.
At the end of streets, houses
have them surrounding them.
Around my house at the time
in Pasadena,
there were tons
of oleander bushes.
[Skip] They found that
it was oleander poisoning.
It's chilling.
Now, this is all just w--
hearsay.
But the word was,
David has lunch with him
someplace in The Valley.
Tim Waters dies.
And people said,
"If David Sconce
"is gonna buy you lunch,
just tell him
you've already eaten."
[suspenseful music
continues playing]
[music fades out]
[David Geary] The police
were looking into all of this.
But in the meantime,
the district attorney
was ready to file the charges
against David and his parents
for the offenses
at the funeral home.
[David Sconce]
Roger Diamond, my attorney,
said that, uh, my parents
and I should show up
because they're gonna
file charges.
And okay, so we all drive
to Pasadena like we're told.
[dramatic, suspenseful
music playing]
[reporter]
David Sconce and his parents
are accused of embezzling funds
from prepaid funeral accounts,
of illegally removing
and selling body tissue,
and of cremating bodies
together
without the consent
from next of kin.
[David Sconce]
So, we appear in court,
and we're each supposed
to have a $5,000 bail.
Well, I'm 31 years old.
I've never been
in trouble, ever.
My parents posted their bail.
And when they wanted
to post my bail,
the district attorney,
Walt Lewis,
went over to Roger and he said,
"Hey, I'm sorry I had to lie
to you about David's bail."
'Cause he'd raised it up
to a half a million dollars.
[David Geary] His attorney,
Roger Diamond, went nuts.
This bail request for $500,000
is really shocking.
I don't believe
And then, the judge said,
"Hey, if it were up to me,
"it'd be a lot higher,
"because he's,
A, a flight risk,
and B, he-- he's a menace
to society."
[dramatic, suspenseful
music continues]
[David Sconce]
So, they swoop in
and took me right to jail.
[engine rumbling]
[Scott Brougham]
I was housed on "D Row"
in the LA County Jail
in what they call
"the high-power section,"
which is where they keep
who they consider, uh,
influential gang members,
uh, celebrities.
So, everybody from Sean Penn
to some of the most horrendous
murderers you've ever seen,
all on this one tier.
[dramatic music playing]
[indistinct chatter]
And we always knew, like,
who was coming on the tier.
So, Sconce becomes
an inmate on D Row.
And he appeared to be this
unassuming Richie Cunningham,
just a white-bred kid
that didn't belong.
[dramatic music continues]
He wasn't a gangster.
He was just a little pussy
that came in off the streets.
[David Sconce]
My very first night in jail,
I was terrified.
Terrified!
[laughing and exclaiming]
Man, I was crying for somebody
to bail me out.
[Scott] So, David became
like my next-door neighbor.
And we discussed everything--
me, him, lifestyles.
He did admit
to commingling bodies,
but he said,
"Well, everybody does that."
You know, you throw
three or four
in whatever, the cremator,
or whatever it's called,
and divvy up the ashes,
and everything's good.
But there came a point
where you could just see
when he was telling stories
where he would become
either overly animated,
or kind of excited about shit
that the average human being
would go, "What the fuck?"
And I'm a criminal,
I'm not some sadist.
Um, whereas I would say his mask
started to come down.
[prisoners chattering]
And he, at one point,
I recall, told me
that he had--
I-- I wanna say
it was an Anarchist Cookbook.
But he had done some research,
reading books on how
to kill people
without leaving,
you know, signs.
[ominous music playing]
I remember David telling me
about putting something
in somebody's spaghetti
at a restaurant.
But I couldn't tell you
whose it was.
And was kinda proud
of the fact
that he had
outsmarted everybody,
which is the equivalent of
"Yeah, I did it, but they're
never gonna fuckin' get me."
[engine revving]
[Andre]
I told the DA
David Sconce would talk
about the things
that he wanted done
in an open setting.
From what I understand,
he had a-- a book
that had different formulas
for poisons.
He had this book,
and he had it
in the car with him,
and he would read things to me.
If we were riding together,
he'd read things to me.
It was called
The Poor Man's James Bond.
[soft eerie music playing]
And it had sneaky ways of--
of hurting and killing people.
And he s-- it was--
it was cute.
He would talk all the time
and read all this stuff,
and, "Listen to this,
and listen to this."
I really never figured
he would do anything like that.
They asked me, and I said,
"I know he likes
"to read that stuff
and talk about that stuff,
"but I-- I think he's all talk.
I don't think that he'd really
ever do anything like that."
So, I-- I was defensive
of him at that point.
But they found the book
in his car,
and I-- I found
the book his car.
I read it.
[eerie music
continues playing]
[Andre] When he mentioned
the oleander, it was like,
"Oh, this stuff,
you can't trace it.
It's a natural you know,
so nobody will ever know."
[former employee speaking]
[ominous sting]
-[ominous music playing]
-[wings fluttering]
[sighs heavily]
[dramatic music playing]
♪♪