These 7 individuals interviewed in The Mortician clearly expressed their disapproval of David Scone’s way of running the Lamb Funeral Home

For years before The Mortician, the Lamb Funeral Home in Pasadena looked like any other neighborhood mortuary. Families trusted it with their loved ones and saw it as a place that honored the dead with care. But once David Sconce took charge, the business turned into something no one expected. The cremations became faster, and the prices dropped, and no one thought to ask why. Inside the facility, bodies were burned together in batches, and ashes were handed out without any proof of whose they were.

Sconce saw dead bodies as a way to make more money. He pulled out teeth to collect gold. He reused cremation chambers without cleaning them. He even stored corpses for months in cold rooms when the ovens could not keep up. Employees started to question what was happening, but by then it had already gone too far.

HBO’s The Mortician shows all of this through real interviews. You hear from former workers who stayed silent out of fear. You hear from reporters who dug into the case. And you hear from Sconce, who says things he probably should not have said. By the end of The Mortician, you are left wondering how much more he is hiding and if justice ever truly came.

These 7 individuals interviewed in The Mortician clearly expressed their disapproval of David Scone’s way of running the Lamb Funeral Home

1. Andre Augustine

As said in The Mortician, Andre Augustine worked inside the crematory during the time David Sconce was running it. He remembers how workers were told to fit as many bodies as possible into the oven at once. He says it started to feel like a contest where respect for the dead was completely lost.

He didn’t think much of it at first because no one questioned Sconce. But things kept getting worse. Augustine says he began connecting the business with something darker. He even started wondering if Sconce had something to do with the death of Tim Waters.

Waters was a rival who spoke out about pricing and suddenly died of suspected poisoning. Augustine’s voice carries weight in the series because he was inside the operation. He saw what the public never did. His interview makes it clear that what went on at Lamb Funeral Home was not just unethical. It crossed every possible line.

2. Johnny Pollerana

Johnny Pollerana drove vans for the funeral home when David Sconce was running things. He says he was told to “pop chops,” which meant breaking mouths open to take gold teeth. He refused to do it.

Other employees followed through with those orders. They took rings from fingers and pulled out fillings. Pollerana says he once watched someone dig through remains with bare hands to find anything valuable. He wanted no part of it and knew it wasn’t normal.

His refusal to take part in these acts is part of what makes his testimony important. Pollerana speaks with the tone of someone who saw everything up close. His account gives the viewer a sense of how Sconce ran the place like a business with no rules. He didn’t just mishandle remains. He created a system where stealing from the dead was expected. And Pollerana made sure people knew it.

3. Louis Quinones

Louis Quinones worked as a van driver at the funeral home and saw things he couldn’t forget. He once delivered a baby’s ashes to a family and later found the actual body still in the van. It was boxed and wrapped in blankets.

That discovery changed the way he saw everything. Quinones says it made him sick to think a grieving family was holding the wrong ashes. He called it another level of depravity. He knew people would never trust them again if they found out.

Quinones stayed quiet for years but eventually told his story in the documentary. His experience brings out how careless and cruel the operation really was. He didn’t just witness a mistake. He saw a deliberate system where the truth didn’t matter. That baby’s body wasn’t misplaced by accident. It was forgotten because no one cared. That is what made the situation so disturbing.

4. Barbara Hunt

Barbara Hunt was married to David Sconce and had no idea what was happening at first. She remembers seeing him in the garage one day, cracking teeth from skulls. He placed them in a plastic cup labeled for gold.

She stood there in shock. She couldn’t believe this was normal. She asked herself what kind of world she was living in. Her reaction in the documentary comes not just from anger but confusion. She trusted him and didn’t know what to do.

Her interview adds a layer that most others can’t. She wasn’t just someone on the outside. She was in the house with the man responsible for it all. Hunt’s story shows how someone that close could still miss the warning signs. It also makes the viewer think about how far Sconce went to hide what he was doing. Her voice stands out because it is honest and deeply personal.

5. Ashley Dunn

Ashley Dunn was a journalist for the LA Times when the Lamb Funeral Home case broke. She remembers how families started realizing the ashes they received didn’t belong to just one person. Some had remains from several different bodies.

She says that the level of betrayal hit people harder than anyone expected. These were not just mistakes. They were choices made to save money and burn more bodies at once. Dunn covered the case closely and spoke to the victims directly.

Her voice helps explain how this story became a national scandal. It wasn’t just the physical crimes. It was the emotional damage. People couldn’t grieve properly because they didn’t know if they had buried their loved ones or a stranger. Dunn’s reporting helped force regulators to act. She helped take the story from quiet whispers to public outrage. Her interviews remind us why journalism mattered in exposing this case.

6. David Geary

David Geary worked as a reporter for the Pasadena Star‑News when the story came out. He sat with families who had received mixed ashes and listened as they broke down in tears. He says they felt robbed of their last goodbyes.

These families trusted the funeral home. They had no reason to suspect anything was wrong. When the truth came out, it shattered their peace. Geary says many of them still live with that uncertainty today. It changed how they saw death and loss.

His role in the documentary helps connect viewers to those families. Geary doesn’t just report the facts. He gives the story a human face. By sharing their pain, he shows why this wasn’t just a case of fraud. It was a personal violation that shook people to their core. His interviews show how trust was destroyed one urn at a time and how that damage still lingers.

7. Deputy Dicus

In The Mortician, Deputy Dicus was part of the San Bernardino team that raided Sconce’s second cremation site in Hesperia. What they found stunned them. Dozens of bodies and body parts were stored in cold rooms and burned in old ceramic kilns.

He says the smell alone was unforgettable. The site was so unregulated that human fat ran through trenches cut into the floor. He described it as ghastly. That moment shifted the case from rumor to confirmed criminal conduct. It left no doubt.

His interview gives the documentary its final punch. Dicus wasn’t reacting to hearsay. He saw everything with his own eyes. That kind of evidence made it impossible for Sconce to hide behind excuses. It also helped prosecutors build the case that would put him behind bars. Dicus shows how the investigation crossed into something far worse than unethical business. It became a crime scene no one could ignore.