The Lamb Funeral Home Legacy

• 💡 Founded in the 1920s by Charles Lamb in Pasadena, California, Lamb Funeral Home was a multigenerational family business that built a reputation for Christian family values.
• 🎯 By the 1980s, Laurianne and Jerry Sconce took over, with their son David Sconce managing cremation services, a growing sector due to affordability and changing religious views.

David Sconce's Deceptive Practices

• 💰 David Sconce, operating Coastal Cremations Inc., offered drastically low prices ($55 per cremation) compared to competitors, raising immediate suspicion.
• 📈 His cremation numbers skyrocketed from 194 in 1981 to 1,675 in 1982, indicating highly suspicious, likely illegal, mass cremation practices.
• ⚠️ Employees reported David and his right-hand man, Johnny Polana, packing multiple bodies into furnaces, breaking bones to fit them, and even burning bodies while high on crack.
• 💀 David Sconce's crematorium, nicknamed the "Ash Palace," was found to be mixing ashes from different bodies, with employees instructed to put specific weights of ash into urns regardless of the deceased.

Harvesting and Selling Body Parts

• 💰 Beyond cremations, David Sconce's operations included stealing jewelry and clothing from the deceased.
• 🦷 He also extracted gold teeth, allegedly making $20,000-$30,000 a month from this practice alone.
• 💔 The most disturbing revelation was the harvesting and sale of body parts, including brains, hearts, lungs, skin, bones, and eyes, through a company called Coastal International Eye and Tissue Bank Inc.
• 🩸 Evidence included photographs of surgical operations to remove tissue and organs, and trenches on the property used to collect human fat.

Violence, Threats, and Legal Battles

• 💥 David Sconce used violence and intimidation against competitors and employees, including ordering assaults and allegedly poisoning rival Tim Waters, who died of a heart attack.
• ⚖️ Despite initial dismissals of charges, David Sconce eventually pleaded guilty to 21 charges, including mutilating corpses and conspiracy to commit murder, receiving a sentence of 5 years in prison.
• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 His parents, Jerry and Laurianne Sconce, were also found guilty of conspiracy and misappropriation of funds, receiving prison sentences for their roles.

The Aftermath and Industry Changes

• 📉 The Lamb Funeral Home scandal led to significant regulatory changes in the funeral and cremation industry, including stricter laws and unannounced inspections.
• 💔 The case affected an estimated 20,000 families, with a class-action lawsuit settling for $15.4 million.
• ⚠️ Despite his convictions, David Sconce continued a pattern of criminal behavior, including fraud and weapons charges, and was granted parole in 2023.