Couple Blame Son in Funeral Home Scandal : Trial: Attorney tells jurors that violations did take place at family’s Pasadena business. But he says former operators had no knowledge.

The former operators of a respected Pasadena funeral home, who are on trial in a bizarre scandal that rocked their industry five years ago, are trying to shift the blame to their son.

Attorney Edward A. Rucker, representing Laurieanne Sconce, has told jurors that mass cremations, commingling of ashes and dental gold extractions did take place at the family’s businesses. But, he said, “these acts were done by their son, David. It was done without their permission or knowledge. It’s resulted in a great tragedy for them, for a third-generation business and for the families of the deceased.”

Laurieanne Lamb Sconce, 55, and her husband, Jerry, 58, former operators of the Lamb Funeral Home, are standing trial on nine criminal charges alleging that they conducted mass cremations, mixed ashes and unlawfully removed gold teeth and other body parts.

The accusations, which surfaced in 1987, led to a new state law that allows crematory inspections on demand. It triggered a class-action lawsuit involving the families of 5,000 deceased people, which was settled this year.

The scandal also ensnared the couple’s son, David, 36. He served about half of a five-year sentence after pleading guilty to 21 counts involving funeral home and crematory operations. Another allegation, that he murdered a rival mortician with poison, has been dropped.

The criminal trial of his parents, long delayed by complex legal disputes, began last week in Pasadena Superior Court. It is expected to continue for another month. The testimony is focusing attention again on the practices at the Lamb Funeral Home, founded by Laurieanne Sconce’s grandfather, and its affiliated cremation and tissue procurement businesses.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Elliott Alhadeff said he will show that David Sconce did not engage in the illegal activities alone. “He operated with the assistance of his parents,” Alhadeff said.

On Tuesday, he questioned a New Jersey woman, Rosemary Schmitz, who said she went to the Lamb Funeral Home on Sept. 18, 1986. Schmitz said she met with Laurieanne Sconce to make arrangements for her sister, Helen Turner of Pasadena, who had died the day before.

Asked if she had granted permission for removal of her sister’s organs, Schmitz replied: “Absolutely not.”

Later, Alhadeff read a transcript of 1987 testimony by Clarence Turner, the dead woman’s husband. Turner, now deceased, said he had never met with Laurieanne Sconce, had made no arrangements at the funeral home and had not granted permission for removal of his wife’s organs.

Alhadeff displayed an enlarged copy of a Coastal International Eye and Tissue Bank organ removal authorization form, carrying Clarence Turner’s signature and dated Sept. 17, 1986--one day before Schmitz made arrangements at Lamb Funeral Home. According to his transcript, Turner never signed the form.

Edwin Lonnie Marshall, who worked as a technician at Coastal International during 1986, testified that the form authorized the staff to remove Helen Turner’s heart, to be sold for medical research.

Marshall, who is an eye bank coordinator at UC Irvine Medical Center, said Coastal International was based at the Lamb Funeral Home during his first months with the firm. Marshall testified that David Sconce ran the tissue service.

The Turner consent form appeared to carry Laurieanne Sconce’s signature as a witness. Marshall testified that Laurieanne Sconce regularly met with family members to obtain organ removal consent.

The prosecutor has accused Laurieanne Sconce of forging authorization forms to allow the removal of eyes and hearts without a family member’s permission. She is facing nine criminal counts.

Three counts also target her husband. If convicted of all counts, Laurieanne Sconce faces up to six years in prison, and Jerry Sconce faces up to five years, Alhadeff said.

While awaiting a verdict, the two have remained free on their own recognizance.

The Sconces have been described as unlikely candidates to be at the center of such allegations. While operating the funeral home, Jerry Sconce served as a Bible school football coach, and his wife was a church organist.

The family’s legal troubles began in early 1987, when investigators found human remains at a remote Hesperia business that was licensed as a ceramics factory. Authorities said the site was a cremation center run by David Sconce.

Investigators alleged that the Sconce family was seeking to dominate the cremation industry, and kept its prices low by illegally cremating bodies together and removing gold teeth and organs for sale.

By 1986, the family’s cremation business, run by David Sconce, was processing 8,000 bodies a year--far more than any other such business in California, authorities said.

David Sconce and his parents were arrested in 1987 and charged initially with 68 criminal counts. The charges were reduced after a lengthy preliminary hearing. Superior Court Judge Terry Smerling dismissed others, and more recently the district’s attorney’s office cut the number of counts to streamline the case.

In February, 1989, state regulators revoked the Lamb Funeral Home’s license, then held by Lawrence Lamb, Laurieanne Sconce’s father. A new license was issued to her brothers, Bruce and Kirk Lamb, who had no involvement in the earlier business. The name was changed to the Pasadena Funeral Home.

In September, 1989, David Sconce pleaded guilty to 21 charges of mishandling remains and was sentenced to five years in prison.

A year later, David Sconce was charged in Ventura County with the 1985 murder of Burbank mortician Timothy R. Waters, 24. Sconce was accused of poisoning Waters with oleander, a toxic plant. The charge was dropped in April, 1991, after new scientific tests failed to show that oleander killed Waters.

David Sconce is scheduled to stand trial this year on several remaining felony charges that he tried to arrange the murders of his grandparents and a prosecutor.

A class-action lawsuit by relatives of people who had been cremated by the Sconce family businesses was settled in February for $15.4 million. The sum is to be paid by the owners of the former Lamb Funeral Home and about 100 other Southern California mortuaries that used its cremation services.

BACKGROUND

Laurieanne Lamb Sconce and her husband, Jerry, former operators of the Lamb Funeral Home in Pasadena, were arrested in 1987, with their son, David, after investigators alleged that they had mishandled human remains. The parents’ trial is under way in Pasadena Superior Court. David Sconce pleaded guilty in 1989 to 21 counts stemming from the family’s cremation and funeral operations. He is scheduled to stand trial this year on charges that he tried to arrange the murder of his grandparents and a prosecutor. Ventura County authorities dropped charges last year alleging that David Sconce murdered a rival mortician by poisoning him with oleander.