7 Details from The Mortician that will literally feel disturbing

HBO’s latest docu-series, The Mortician, tells the true story of the Lamb Funeral House scandal, followed by the disturbing and horrific details about the crimes committed by David Sconce. The series includes interviews with several of the victims who availed of David Sconce’s cremation services to cremate their loved ones.

The series also included exclusive interviews with David Sconce himself, his ex-wife, Barbara, and his employees who worked with him in his crematory. The Mortician explored numerous disturbing details that Sconce had been doing, from desecrating human remains and organ harvesting to threatening people to earn money as he had turned the funeral home services into a money-making business and wanted to gain profit at the cost of bodies given to his funeral home.

Here are 7 such details from The Mortician that are disturbing than a horror film.

7 Details from The Mortician that will literally feel disturbing

7) David Sconce cremated more than one body in an oven

The funeral home had two ovens to burn bodies in their crematorium, as shared in The Mortician. Ideally, only one body is supposed to be cremated at a time. However, his employees, specifically Johnny, who loaded the bodies into the fire, told him that he would load more than one body into the oven.

When asked how many, he said that he would be told by David to adjust around 15 bodies in each over. This meant they would be able to burn more bodies and grow their business more. He also shared that it actually began with 2-3 bodies at a time and reached 15 bodies.

6) Broke the bones of the bodies to fit them in the oven

Andre Augustine in The Mortician | Image via YouTube/HBO

Another detail about burning the bodies that was revealed in The Mortician was that they would break the bones of the bodies to make them fit in the oven. Andre, who drove the truck that brought the dead bodies in from morgues and other places, shared in the docuseries that he had seen them breaking the bones of the bodies - it could be a leg, an arm, or even the collar bones, to fit them inside the ovens.

This was their way of making sure they could cremate more bodies at a time. But this also meant that the ashes of multiple bodies were mixed up, and the ashes that they gave to the family members were not necessarily their loved ones.

5) The funeral employees cut off parts of the body to steal the jewelry and sell it with their other stuff

Burning multiple bodies was not the only dubious thing they were doing in the funeral home, as it was revealed in The Mortician that David and some of his employees also stole jewelry from the human remains. Johnny shared that since the bodies would swell up after death, they sometimes even cut body parts to acquire jewelry from them.

Not just that. They would even keep the clothes, including shoes and socks, and sell them to earn more money. Another disturbing detail shown in the docu-series was how David used to collect gold from the teeth of the bodies by plucking them out and breaking them. When asked about this, David nonchalantly told the interviewers that he only did it when the family and relatives of the deceased asked them to.

4) Began burning bodies in the ceramics factory in Hesperia

Scene from The Mortician | Image via YouTube/HBO

As shown in The Mortician, the funeral home was burned in a fire accident. However, that did not stop David from continuing his business as he took it to the desert area of Hesperia, California.

There, he owned a ceramics factory, Oscar Ceramics, and began to cremate the bodies in the kiln where ceramics are supposed to go through the process of firing. However, this also resulted in David’s activities reaching law enforcement. As per The Mortician, police were called to report about the activities going on in the factory when a World War II soldier, who was involved in the liberation of Jews in Auschwitz, called in and told them that it smelled like human remains burning, just like in concentration camps.

When the police went inside and opened a kiln, they were shocked by the horrific sight in front of them, as it consisted of around 150-200 bodies at a time.

3) Harvesting body parts

Darlynn Branton-Stoa in The Mortician | Image via YouTube/HBO

As the activities of David Sconce came to light, more disturbing details began coming out. Johnny and several other employees of David’s, including an unnamed employee, testified in court and also shared during their interviews in The Mortician that David had begun harvesting body parts and selling them to hospitals and other medical institutions without informing the relatives of the deceased.

This was another shock for the families who went to the Lamb Funeral Home to cremate their loved ones. Not only did they not receive the ashes of their deceased relatives, but now they found out that their organs might still be in use by someone else or even used for studying and research. Darlynn Branton-Stoa, one of the victims in the scandal, was devastated after finding out that David and his people desecrated her father’s remains.

2) Involvement of more of the Sconce family

The case became more disturbing when it came to light via the investigation that David might not be the only Sconce involved in these activities. As shared in The Mortician, David’s mom was a part of it all. She also embezzled a lot of money, due to which they were put on trial, resulting in their imprisonment.

As shown in the docu-series, the relatives of the deceased had to sign a form to give consent to cremate the remains of the deceased. However, the Sconce had changed the language of the form a little and added a small point that gave them consent that they could sell the organs of the deceased. David’s mother, Laureanne, was speculated to have made those families sign the form.

1) “That’s not your loved one anymore.” - David Sconce

Apart from showing all the details of the scandal in The Mortician, the docu-series also introduced how David Sconce was a disturbing and sadistic man. In many of the clips, David can be heard saying he didn’t do anything wrong and that it was their family business. He was not remorseful about hurting the sentiments of the people who trusted and gave him the right to cremate their deceased family members, and he violated their trust and the remains of their loved ones.

He said:

"I could cremate one guy in, like, two hours. Or you could put ten of ‘em in there and take two-and-a-half hours. So, what would be the difference? There is none."

He claimed that the bodies were not anyone’s loved ones anymore, and he didn’t commit any criminal activity there. From being suspected of killing Tim Waters to threatening multiple others, David still maintains that he did not do any of these, and all of these are just allegations.