FRENCH VALLEY, Calif. (AP) A crematorium owner who removed
heads, knees, spines and other body parts from dozens of corpses
scheduled for cremation and sold the parts for medical research was
sentenced to 20 years in prison, authorities said.
Riverside County Superior Court Judge Rodney Walker sentenced
Michael Francis Brown to the maximum punishment Friday under a plea
bargain the 44-year-old Murrieta man made with prosecutors.
``By failing to recognize the humanity of the human remains he
came in contact with, by failing to recognize the humanity of the
husbands and wives and brothers and sisters who brought their loved
ones to him ... Mr. Brown demonstrated his own humanity had
somewhere gone awry,'' Walker said.
As part of his plea bargain, Brown, the former owner of Pacific
Care Crematorium in Lake Elsinore, pleaded guilty to 66 counts of
embezzlement and mutilating grave remains. Originally, 281 counts
were filed against him.
Prosecutors said that between 2000 and 2001 Brown removed body
parts from bodies intended for cremation, selling the parts to
medical research companies through his business, Biotech
Anatomical. He earned at least $435,000 from the sales, said Deputy
District Attorney Karen Gorham.
Victims attended Friday's sentencing and described gruesome
visions of their loved one's bodies being dismembered.
Regina Walsh of Hemet wrote in a statement read in court that
parts from her husband's body were found in the crematorium's
freezer.
``I was asked to identify my husband's severed head,'' wrote
Walsh. ``You will never know how horrid an experience that was for
me. Mr. Brown had no right to dissect my husband's body for his own
greed.''
Brown's attorney, Richard Layon, who said he was stunned by the
sentence, had asked the judge to give Brown probation or a sentence
of two years and eight months in prison.
Brown was handcuffed and led from court after the judge denied
his request to remain free for two weeks.
Also on Friday, Daniel Schonberger, a driver at the crematorium,
pleaded guilty to unlawfully mutilating a body. Crematory operator
Jose Terrazas has also pleaded guilty to the same charge and both
men face up to one year in jail.
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)