What happened to Laurieanne Lamb and Jerry Sconce?
When Laurieanne and Jerry went to trial, they pleaded innocence—and pointed the finger at their son.
Extracting gold teeth and other ghoulish actions “were done by their son, David,” their lawyer Edward A. Rucker said in court, per the LA Times. “It’s resulted in a great tragedy for them, for a third-generation business and for the families of the deceased.”
But the jury didn’t buy that they had no idea what was happening under their noses. In April 1995, per the LA Times, Jerry was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to remove parts and one count of misappropriation of $100,000 in trust account money, but not guilty of four counts of illegally removing and selling body parts from corpses before they were cremated.
Laurieanne was convicted of three of four counts of unlawfully authorizing the removal of eyes, hearts, lungs and brains from bodies prior to cremation, as well as three counts of forging customer signatures on organ donor and cremation authorization forms.
They were each sentenced to three years and eight months in prison.
“They did it literally to steal the hearts of the dead, and break the hearts of the living,” Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John Ouderkirk said in court. “They were conning the bereaved to make money.” The couple appealed but ultimately served their full terms.
Jerry died in 2019 at the age of 85. Laurieanne, now in her late 80s, is leading a private life and opted not to participate in The Mortician.
