01x02 - Episode 2

[bunniefuu]

[♪ curious music playing]

[Andre Augustine] Tim Waters
had put two and two together

and knew what David
Sconce was doing.

He knew that on a
crematorium side...

he was doing something that
was either ill*gal or immoral.

[David Geary] The rumors
were that Tim Waters

had gone out to eat with
David right before he died.

People were saying that
David had had him k*lled.

[Andre] After Tim
Waters had died...

without an obstruction
to his success...

David Sconce, he felt
like he could do anything.

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[David Geary] David
had grand plans.

He had designs on, you
know, the entire West.

And he went out and he
solicited a lot more business.

[former employee speaking]

[flames whooshing]

[♪ dramatic music
continues playing]

[♪ music intensifies]

[♪ music fades out]

[Johnny Pollerana speaking]

The shelves would be full.
The freezer would be full.

And I could never
catch up. Never.

And in return, if he needed
me to do something, I did it.

Except I wasn't
gonna beat nobody up,

I wasn't gonna k*ll anybody,
and I wasn't gonna do

anything ill*gal other
than what we were doing.

"There's nothing gonna happen,"
and everything happened.

That Murphy's Law
thing, you know?

If it can go wrong,
it's gonna go wrong.

And it really went wrong.

[chains rattling]

[former employee] One night,

I was a runner at
the crematorium.

[flames whooshing]

[fire roaring]

[flames whooshing]

[♪ ominous music playing]

[David Sconce] I
forget who called me.

I think Johnny was the one
who called me, I think.

Yeah, "Whoa, what do you
mean, it burned down?"

[♪ ominous music
continues playing]

I found out these guys smoked
their dope, and they left!

It's just...

[sighs] There's no
words. There's no words.

[wind whistling]

[Jay Brown] You
know, after the fire,

David's business
didn't shut down.

He was still picking up cases,

and yet everybody knew

that his facility
had burnt down.

[♪ mysterious music playing]

[David Sconce] After the fire
happened at the crematory...

I didn't stop.

But nobody could figure out

where I was cremating my bodies.

[birdsong]

[♪ soft eerie music playing]

[Richard Wales] In


as the Air Quality Engineer

for the San Bernardino County
Air Pollution Control Agency.

My job was to protect
the environment

for the health and
welfare of the citizens

that live in the area.

We had received complaints
from the citizenry

in the high desert
in the Hesperia area

about a facility.

The name was Oscar Ceramics.

The owner was David Sconce.

They claimed they were
making ceramic tiles

for NASA and the space industry.

We had a business
owner in the area

complaining about smell...

smoke coming out
of the building,

and even sometimes flames
leaping out of the stack.

He was very adamant...

that he smelled burning
bodies, burning flesh.

He was in one of
the military units

that had, uh, liberated one
of the concentration camps,

I believe it was
Auschwitz itself.

And so, he knew this odor to him

was the same odor that
he had smelled then.

[♪ eerie music continues]

We just knew there's
something going on.

[Johnny speaking]

And all the things
that followed with it

were stuff that were
gonna get us in trouble.

It's starting to get
like, what are we doing?

We're going way, way,
way, way, way overboard.

I mean, it's not like
I'm gonna stop doing it.

I've already been doing it.

But it was like a lot.

[♪ eerie music
continues playing]

[David Dicus] My name is
David Dicus, I was a sergeant

with the San Bernardino
Sheriff's Department.

I, uh, was assigned to
run the detective bureau.

We had a couple of our patrolmen
called out to the scene.

There was a ceramics factory in
Hesperia called Oscar Ceramics.

There was smoke coming
underneath the doors.

One of the patrolmen
called us up and said,

"I... this... this case
seems like it's got legs."

[♪ ominous music playing]

We rolled out to the scene.

When we first arrived,
nobody would come out.

Then, once we had a
pretty good presence

between law enforcement
and the fire,

um, he ultimately did come
out, a Hispanic gentleman.

[♪ ominous music continues]

[Johnny speaking]

And...

finally, the San Bernardino
County Sheriff came.

That's when they got to come in.

Otherwise, I was stalling
these guys as long as I could.

[Richard] The
operator in there,

he was working
in a... a Camaro.

He did not sit in the
building. I asked him why.

He said, "It's too
smoky in there to work."

He actually had a... a
small TV and the phone line

into his car sitting out by
the door of the building.

Johnny claimed to
us he did not know

what was going on in the kilns.

He said somebody else
loaded the kilns.

When they're loaded, he
gets a call to come up

and fire the kilns off.

He was very nervous,
he did call Mr. Sconce,

supposably, and talked with him.

And I think... I
think at that point,

David must have known
that the gig was up.

[Johnny speaking]

He says, "I don't know,
but hide the stuff."

I go, [scoffs]
"David, we can't...

"We can't hide any more things.

It's too late. We're
in trouble now."

So, I hung up with him, I
went outside, got the key,

opened the door. They came in.

[♪ tense tones playing]

[David Dicus] One
we got inside...

instantaneous, you can tell
there's something wrong,

uh, from the smell of it all.

When you first walk in,

there's soot all over the walls.

Uh, the soot's so oily,

it's sticking to your shoes.

If you touch anything, it
would get on your clothing.

And we're all wearing suits,

so we tried to be as
careful as possible.

Uh, there were barrels
of prosthesis around,

because prosthesis don't burn.

It really kinda took you back.

[Johnny speaking]

I go, "I'm not opening that
oven, you can't make me.

"You open it. You wanna
see what's in there?

Open it."

[fire rumbling]

...they stopped it
from being cremated.

So, it's just like a bunch
of bodies still in there.

So, I... I went
outside, you know.

I didn't want to see all that.

[♪ tense music playing]

[David Dicus] We took
the opportunity to open

one of the kilns to
see what was inside,

and there were multiple
bones from the whole process,

even some flesh that
had not been, uh,

totally burned yet.

[Richard] Upon
opening the kilns,

we saw burning
material falling out.

I did see what looked like
a human skull in there.

[♪ tense music continues]

[David Dicus] In
front of the kilns,

they had cut trenches
about four inches wide

that ran out into the
back of the facility,

uh, primarily to
capture the human fat

that was burning off
of all these bodies.

[♪ eerie jazz music playing]

[Richard] This is
beyond anything

I could really comprehend
in my own mind.

It's a surreal situation.
Do you really believe

what you're seeing, even
though you're seeing it?

[♪ eerie jazz music
continues playing]

Uh, you just...
you kinda wonder

what type of people were
doing this type of operation.

[interviewer speaking]

Pfft, I don't know, it
was probably close to 200.

Right around in there,


when they came and
shut the ovens down.

At a time.

Yeah.

[♪ ominous music playing]

[David Sconce] Because
of the fire in Pasadena,

I used Hesperia before
it was really ready.

And that was a bad choice.
I made that choice.

I'm the only one
to blame for that.

Yeah, I could say,
well, I wanted to keep

all my people employed.

So, I needed to not
interrupt anything

that was working towards
the ultimate end.

But it doesn't justify
what I did, see?

I should have been more selfish
and shut everything down...

and done it right.

But I was in a hurry.

Permits. Conditional
use permits.

Sure, that was
still gonna go on.

That was still gonna go on.

[♪ soft mysterious
music playing]

I was working late
at the office,

and a story came over the wire

from the San Bernardino Sun.

It was a very short story.

The guy they said
was responsible

was David Sconce of Pasadena.

I thought, okay, he's local.

And I just got out
the phone book.

This is all pre-computers.

And I started calling
people named Sconce,

and there were a number of them.

I asked questions about
this ill*gal crematorium.

About the fourth one, the
guy picked up the phone

and he just started
screaming and yelling,

you know, "f*ck you!
Who the f*ck are you?"

And I thought,
"Okay, this is him,"

you know, "I got him."

[♪ soft mysterious
music playing]

I found out he owned
Pasadena Crematorium.

And I called the number
in the phone book...

and they answered the
phone, "Lamb Funeral Home."

They had the same
telephone number.

I knew the Lambs were the Lambs.

They were prominent people,
I knew who they were.

So, I went to one
of the editors,

and I said, "Something
is happening here,

and it could be pretty wild."

So, we did a story
the following day,

which I wrote, and it said,
"Here he is, David Sconce,

and he's, you know, affiliated
with the Lamb Funeral Home."

I started to get phone calls.

People were very
supportive of the Lambs

and were, you know, outraged

that we would be
disparaging them in any way.

You know, "You should
be ashamed of yourself.

You shouldn't be
writing about this."

[birds chirping]

[David Dicus] At that point
in time, I really did not know

what crimes had been violated,

other than maybe the
pollution end of it,

environmental health.

But from a criminal standpoint,

we really didn't
know what we had.

We did serve the search
warrant in Pasadena

at the Lamb Funeral Home.

That was our first
search warrant.

And I had an opportunity
to walk around the place,

had an opportunity
to meet Laurieanne.

The sweetest lady you
ever want to talk to.

I asked her lots of questions
about the operation,

and she was more
than willing to talk.

She had no concept
of what was going on.

I saw the business office,

and there were
photographs on the walls.

Embalming photographs.

We started collecting evidence.

[camera clicking]

Then, we went back into
their cold storage.

[lights clacking]

We saw hundreds of bodies...

-[camera clicking]
-...wrapped up in cardboard.

-There were body parts.
-[camera clicking]

It was ghastly.

And I'm thinking, these
people are lawfully dead.

What do we really have here?

Was there more criminal
activity going on?

And who else was involved?

Our second search warrant
was on Lamb Senior's home.

[birds chirping]

Just like approaching his house,

it's a big, beautiful house.

[ambient street
and traffic noise]

[♪ solemn music playing]

Beautiful furnishings,
very cooperative people.

These people had
to have resources,

had to have some influence.

I got the impression
that Lamb Senior

was a stand-up guy.

He was a part of that
community forever.

He probably did
cremations one at a time,

and somehow, the family
members went awry.

[Elie Estephan] Lamb, the
elder, he was a decent man.

Straight as an arrow,
everything by the book.

[♪ solemn music continues]

In this business, you
don't mass cremate.

It's ill*gal, it's a state law,

and it's... it's inhuman.

And anti-everything I believe in

is not to treat a
loved one of a family

with dignity and respect.

So, we don't mass
cremate. We can't.

All of a sudden,
Dave Sconce's case

blew up wide open.

Other mortuaries start
see... reading it.

Supposedly, Lamb told
his daughter, actually,

"Your son will ruin my name."

[♪ ominous music playing]

[siren wailing]

[David Sconce] When
the first search

of the premises took place...

I got thrown in the backseat
of a Pasadena police car,

and they're all running
around the mortuary

looking for stuff, and
they left empty-handed,

and we don't know what
they were looking for.

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[David Geary] He was
in the back of the car.

He was, you know, very aware
that he was performing.

He could be scary,
he could be charming.

And in that particular instance,
you know, as I'm saying...

waving goodbye to him...

he made this crazed face.

Like Charles Manson, you know?

Looked like a homicidal maniac.

My boss said, "Oh, we
can't use that picture.

He looks horrible." And
I said, "He is horrible."

Come on. This is him.
This is what he did.

We didn't ask him
to do anything.

This is, you know, one
of his expressions,

and he looks nuts.

[♪ soft mysterious
music playing]

[reporter] San Bernardino
County investigators

returned to the ceramics
building last night

with shovels and
a search warrant.

But authorities would
not say if they recovered

any more partially
cremated bodies.

The Hesperia building was
owned by the Sconce family.

[indistinct chatter]

Sconce and his
father are accused

of environmental
violations and grand theft.

They're accused of
taking gold fillings

from bodies that were cremated,

charges they say are
absolutely ridiculous.

There were no improprieties with
the operation either in Altadena

or the subsequent
operation in Hesperia.

And we've been really,
really misquoted,

misunderstood, and...

and just crucified in the
press for about a week.

[reporter] Both were
arrested last week

and released on bail.

[detective] The investigation is
nowhere complete at this time.

It's a very involved case,
and will take a lot of time

to, um, establish
certain information.

[Darlynn Branton-Stoa] One day,
I was going to the grocery store,

and I picked up the LA Times,

and I read about the Lamb
Funeral Home scandal.

I about fell down in the
parking lot, I did not know.

And I was shocked.

I was devastated that they
desecrated my father like this.

I can't think of the words
to describe how I feel...

[reporter] Daughter
Darlynn says before he died

of a heart attack two years ago,

Branton asked that
his body be cremated,

the ashes distributed to
members of his family.

But the Lamb crematory service
allegedly cremated his body

with others in the same
oven, commingling the ashes.

I have what I thought was
my father's ashes here,

but apparently, they are
not my father's ashes.

[birdsong]

[Louis Quinones] I had been
working for the Sconces,

say, maybe seven, eight months

as a truck driver, delivering,

picking up, uh, human remains.

When I got to the mortuary
and Johnny comes out and says,

"We got busted,"
I felt relieved.

Like... [sighs] Finally,
you know, finally.

You know, "We got
busted, we got busted!"

And I said, uh, "Good,
that's awesome."

[♪ upbeat jazzy music playing]

[Johnny speaking]

When I went to go get
my stuff out of Hesperia

and move back home, got
home at 2:00 in the morning.

They were waiting for
me across the street.

[reporter] Sheriff's
investigators

in San Bernardino County today

announced the arrest
of another suspect

in connection with the operation

of an ill*gal crematorium in
the desert town of Hesperia.

This person who was
arrested yesterday

is a John Daniel,
uh, Pol... Pollerana.

[Brad Sallard] They arrested
everybody that worked at the mortuary.

They arrested everybody
who was down there

because it was a shotgun effect.

Everybody they
saw, they arrested,

and then sorted it out later.

Got me too, you know.

They detained me for
about three hours

and kept asking me the same
questions over and over again.

-[indistinct chatter]
-[bars clanging]

And finally, I
think to scare me,

they put me in
general population

for about an hour.

[♪ dramatic music playing]

And it scared me. [laughing]

But... and I told him, I said,

"You... you tell me what
you want me to tell you,

and I'll tell you,
I want outta here."

[prisoners shouting]

[Johnny speaking]

[♪ dramatic music continues]

[chuckles]

[former employee speaking]

[♪ curious music playing]

[David Geary] I couldn't
get David to talk,

or Jerry Sconce, or Laurieanne.

[office phones ringing]

But in the meantime,

my phone was just
ringing off the hook

with ex-employees
who wanted to say,

"Hey, let me tell you
about this place."

And they had some
wild tales to tell.

They were talking about pulling
the gold out of the teeth...

and David's attitude
toward the bodies,

almost gleefully doing deeds

that would really
shock most people.

I really don't
remember him being nice

about anything to anybody,
especially a dead body.

[♪ dark, eerie music playing]

He'd pick up a body like
this, you know, like a book,

and he's walking around
like that, you know.

He would talk to 'em, like,
"What happened to you, huh?"

Bah... you know, slap
'em a little bit,

or... or touch 'em on the belly.

How sick is that?

That's his sense of
humor, very cold.

[David Geary] Most
of David's employees

were glad to... to be able
to talk about this stuff.

But they were scared
because they said

this guy had a long history

of hurting people.

[♪ tense music playing]

[bird squawking]

[David Dicus] At that
point in time, all we had

was the cremation of bodies.

Those would all have
been, uh, at... at best,

maybe some misdemeanors,

maybe some environmental
health issues.

Unless we had some
felonies to work with

to drive the case on,
we wouldn't have enough

to bring about some
type of prosecution.

[♪ ominous music playing]

[Skip Jones] There was a
task force that I recall

being part of that
included, uh, the police,

um, uh, district attorney,

um, probably a representative
from the cemetery board.

And they were very, very
interested in my work

because of the audit
that I had done

at the Lamb Funeral Home.

My job was to audit
pre-need trust accounts.

Pre-need's just going
in and discussing

with the funeral director
exactly what your needs are,

and paying for it
prior to the demise.

The funeral director
then is charged

with safekeeping those monies.

And there are certain rules
that go along with that.

[birdsong]

Well, the prior year...

in 1986, I'd just went out
to the Lamb Funeral Home

to do a routine audit
of their trust funds.

I just went in
like I normally do.

Sport coat, tie, briefcase,
state of California.

I recall Laurieanne Lamb
sitting at the front desk.

[♪ light music playing]

That was the first
time I ever saw her.

And as many years ago as it is,

I can recall it like
it was yesterday.

She kinda had poofy hair,

and there might have been
a light shining behind her,

because honestly,
in my lifetime,

that's the closest I've
ever seen to an aura.

I mean, I just
went, "Oh, my God."

She was just different.

She was just the
most perfect person

to do what she did,

and her... her
manner was just so...

it wasn't maudlin, it
was just, "All I wanna do

is just take care of families.
I just wanna counsel 'em."

[♪ light music continues]

That was her reason for being,

was to just serve families
in their time of grief.

She just glowed. [chuckles]

Pretty amazing. I'll
never forget that.

But it turned out that
there was a problem.

Laurieanne had all of
these pre-need accounts

that she's taken money
for that weren't reported.

[♪ curious music playing]

I think about 170 accounts.

That alone, bang,
that's a violation.

She's, "Oh my goodness.

Please tell me what
I'm supposed to do."

She's very upset that they
had done something wrong,

and wanted to do everything
to make it right.

I said, "You need to get
that money into an account,

and you've gotta start
reporting them to the board."

"No problem. And I'm not
gonna take any more money.

"I'm gonna set 'em up
in passbook accounts.

Uh, we're just trying to run
this business the best we can."

[chuckles] Okay.

And you know, I mean, I had
no reason not to believe her.

[♪ curious music continues]

Well, she never did any of that.

And by the time I was
meeting with this task force,

we knew that Laurieanne

had raked about $100,000
worth of interest

off of those accounts.

That's grand theft.

Now, a district attorney could
charge 'em with a felony.

-[birds chirping]
-[leaves rustling]

[David Dicus] Once we discovered
the financial crimes...

we went back into the
station and we discussed

what our next move
is going to be.

And in our office, we
had the photographs

from the funeral home,
along with other evidence.

And we had two great
deputy coroners.

They walked in, they
looked at the photographs.

What I thought was embalming,

they looked at immediately,
and guess what?

They said, "They're
harvesting body parts."

[♪ spooky music playing]

They could look at
those photographs,

see the peeling
of the skin back.

Tissues were being removed.

Harvesting body parts,

it brought new dynamics
to our investigation.

[♪ spooky music
continues playing]

[sighs] Um...

I witnessed a few
extractions of body parts.

It was common
knowledge around there

in the people that worked there

that they were harvesting
organs to... to sell.

[♪ dark, eerie music playing]

There was a room that had
a bunch of tools and junk.

That's where he did
the teeth extractions

and the organ harvesting.

[lights clicking]

[Louis] As soon as I'd
bring the truck in,

boom, they'd rush out there
and... and check the bodies.

They would mark it "Whole"

or "Donor."

David would show up and,
"Okay, let's go to work."

[surgical tools whirring]

He had a couple of guys there
that they looked like doctors.

You know, taking
the eyeballs out,

and... and... and livers,
and hearts, and stuff.

I could see what
they were doing.

The body was all cut up.

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[David Sconce] I was picking
up a body at a mortuary,

and there was this
guy, George Bristol,

I didn't know who he was,
but he was back there

and he was doing something,

like, he had surgical
equipment on the table.

And I'm an embalmer, and
I knew that wasn't stuff

I'd ever seen before.

Okay, there's a thing
called a slit lamp

which actually mows the
cornea off your eyeball

in a... in a hygienic kind of
a way that doesn't ruin it.

So, I... I... "Hey,
what are you doing?"

And I met him, and
we started talking,

and he was working for
UCLA Doheny Eye Bank.

And I said, "Well,
dude, I get, like,

"pssh, probably 1,000
dead people a month

"through my facility, and...
and if only 100 of 'em

are viable, that's a whole
lot of corneas you can move."

So, George started doing some
research with me, and I formed

the Coastal International
Eye and Tissue Bank.

[David Geary] David
set up an operation

on the grounds of
the funeral home.

And he hired people

from established
organ-donation businesses...

and established ties
with medical companies

all over the world.

[David Sconce] We got
the account back east

at Carolina Biological,
which I thought was great.

It was a pretty good-sized deal.

Hundred for a heart,
hundred for a brain,

hundred for a set of
lungs, and all that.

Now, you can't
sell human tissue,

but you can bill
people for your time

in making it available, 'kay?

That's how you get around it.

And, I mean, if
you think about it,

why wouldn't you do it?

It doesn't make any sense
to me to waste stuff

when it can help other people.

[David Geary] They would
take skin from people

for burn victims.

Eyes... not just
corneas, but whole eyes,

hearts, lungs, brains, bones.

They got $55 to
cremate this corpse,

and now it's worth
all kinds of money.

Like car parts, you know,

like you strip a car
down and... and sell it.

Every body, you know, was
all its own little goldmine.

[sea birds calling]

[waves softly crashing]

[sea birds continue calling]

[Nancy Hathorn] My
relationship with my dad

when I was very young,

it was mixed, frankly.

Um, I think he
had a lot of PTSD.

He was born in Germany.

He was an adolescent the
beginning of World w*r II.

He had a horrible life.

He was very rigid.
He drank a lot.

But I... he did love
us really fiercely.

He really did, and you know,

the older he got,
the more he softened.

I just saw such a huge change
in him when I got married.

And when I became pregnant,

he was really
excited about that.

He would have been a
fantastic grandfather.

On September 20th, 1986,

he had a stroke and he died.

The Lamb family mortuary
handled the cremation.

We took a truck
out to the desert,

my mom, and my husband,
and my sister, and...

because that was his heart
and soul, out in the desert.

We said, you know,
all these nice things

and spread these ashes.

[wind whistling]

And then, when we find out

they just scooped up
whoever, whatever,

and that's what we
left in the desert.

And just... that
was just so sad.

[♪ somber music playing]

I believe it was a
few months later,

we were told what they
had taken from him.

It was just so...
again, you know,

astonishing that this
keeps getting worse,

you know, that they
took his brains,

his eyes, you... you know.

We were all in shock,
in absolute shock.

My dad was floating around
in hospitals everywhere,

being picked at and
studied, and you know,

he didn't agree to that,
we didn't agree to that.

[♪ ominous music playing]

[David Geary] I talked to
a lot of family members,

and they were very rattled.

They were angry,
they were upset.

I found out actually
on the news.

It just... like somebody
hit you over the head

with a... with
a... with a bat.

I never discussed anything

about donating organs
or anything like that,

which I would have
absolutely go against.

[David Geary] A lot of
the families were bitter,

especially toward Laurieanne.

She was the face of
the funeral home.

She dealt with the bereaved.

She advised people,

gave them the...
the papers to sign.

Everyone was wondering if
she knew what was going on.

[Louis] I looked
at her as my mom.

She was so sweet.

You know, she's willing to make
you a cake, if you wanted it.

But... but, uh,
on the other hand,

there was a very dark
side on... on that woman.

Looks are deceiving,
let me tell you.

[♪ gentle eerie music playing]

I remember going to
the family's house...

picking up their...
their grandpa,

and everybody is just crying.

And Laurieanne called me
on the radio and said...

"Hon, if the body's still warm,

"open up his eyelids
and see if his eyes

"are watery, or are they dry?

"And if they're dry,
there's a bottle

"in the glove compartment.

"Get that bottle and
put a couple of drops

in each eye, and
then call me."

After that, it was every day.

"Is the body warm,
honey? Is the body warm?"

She was very pious, churchy,

and people trusted her.

Apparently, she kept
ashes in her office.

She had a chart all worked out.

How much ash to put in an urn,

how much a... an
adult male would be,

what an adult female
would be, a baby.

There were babies
involved in this thing.

Can you imagine?

[former employee speaking]

[♪ sinister music playing]

The side hustle, the
teeth and the gold,

Jerry, I'm sure, had been
doing that from day one,

since he married
into that family.

One day, I saw
Jerry rooting around

in this person's mouth.

He just reaches in and pulls
a couple of gold teeth out.

Puts 'em in a Styrofoam
cup, and he goes,

"That's how we can afford
to pay you what we pay you."

[flames roaring]

[David Sconce] Multiple
cremations, gold, ash.

My parents did all of that
before me, all of that.

-[interviewer] Well...
-Yeah.

My mom's dad did that before it.

My grandfather, Lawrence
Lamb, had a lot of money.

He was very business-oriented.

I have one thing I never forgot.

[birdsong]

It was Christmas,
and all the families

were all together,
uh, at the house

on... on Orange Grove,
at my grandparents' home.

[♪ somber music playing]

I'm a little kid, and I
remember being positioned

with all the cousins, and
all the family behind.

My grandfather's
standing out there,

and he had a
camera, and he said,

"Smile. Say 'money.'"

He didn't say "cheese."
He said, "Say 'money.'"

[♪ eerie music playing]

This was learned
through generations.

So, if you wanna say,

"fruit of the poisonous
tree," there you go.

[♪ eerie music
continues playing]

[♪ music fades out]

[traffic noise]

[David Geary] As this
criminal investigation

into David Sconce continued...

the police found all
this incremental stuff,

but it got, you know,
progressively worse.

It came out that he had his guys

beat up these rival
funeral home directors,

several of them.

[♪ curious music playing]

And in particular,

there was this Tim Waters guy...

who was savagely beaten
up and wound up dead.

So, police started digging.

And they had a lucky break.

[♪ dramatic music playing]

It... it turns out, the night
Tim Waters was beaten up...

some neighbor saw two guys...

sitting outside of his place
of business in Burbank...

eating and dumping their
trash out the window.

And give 'em credit,
the Burbank police

picked this stuff up...

and put it away in
an evidence locker.

It sat there for, Jesus,
two and a half years?

[lights clicking]

And when things
started to unravel,

well, they said,

"Let's check on this
evidence that we found."

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

The clearest prints were
on a small carton of milk.

And sure enough,

there's Danny
Galambos' fingerprints.

All roads led back
to David Sconce.

They were clearly
known associates.

[Andre] They didn't
know who we were

till they got to Danny Galambos.

They brought him in,
they asked him questions,

and he was singing
like a canary,

corroborated all the information
about the Tim Waters beating.

And they knew that the guy died.

[David Geary] Once
Danny Galambos

was arrested, he told the police

David told him,

"I poisoned this
guy and he died."

And Danny said, you
know, that David

had bragged about this to him.

[♪ dark music playing]

So, the DA's office
says, "Hey, you know,

we should take a look at it."

Back in 1985,

when Tim Waters, uh, died...

the medical examiner
did an autopsy.

It was ruled a heart attack.

They found nothing suspicious.

But the thing is, they didn't
look for anything suspicious.

But they did keep
tissue samples.

And then, in 1987,
the DA's office

orders these tissue
samples to be analyzed.

[♪ curious music playing]

[Ashley Dunn] They didn't
do the toxicology report

when Tim Waters died.

It was only when
this came up again

that they conducted those tests.

And they found an extract of
poison made from oleander.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

Oleander bushes are everywhere
in Southern California.

At the end of streets, houses
have them surrounding them.

Around my house at
the time in Pasadena,

there were tons of
oleander bushes.

[Skip] They found that it
was oleander poisoning.

It's chilling.

Now, this is all
just w... hearsay.

But the word was, David
has lunch with him

someplace in The Valley.

Tim Waters dies.

And people said,
"If David Sconce

"is gonna buy you
lunch, just tell him

you've already eaten."

[♪ suspenseful music
continues playing]

[♪ music fades out]

[David Geary] The police were
looking into all of this.

But in the meantime,
the district attorney

was ready to file the charges
against David and his parents

for the offenses at
the funeral home.

[David Sconce] Roger
Diamond, my attorney,

said that, uh, my parents
and I should show up

because they're
gonna file charges.

And okay, so we all drive
to Pasadena like we're told.

[♪ dramatic, suspenseful
music playing]

[reporter] David
Sconce and his parents

are accused of embezzling funds
from prepaid funeral accounts,

of illegally removing
and selling body tissue,

and of cremating bodies together

without the consent
from next of kin.

[David Sconce] So,
we appear in court,

and we're each supposed
to have a $5,000 bail.

Well, I'm 31 years old.

I've never been
in trouble, ever.

My parents posted their bail.

And when they wanted
to post my bail,

the district
attorney, Walt Lewis,

went over to Roger and he said,

"Hey, I'm sorry I had to lie
to you about David's bail."

'Cause he'd raised it up to
a half a million dollars.

[David Geary] His attorney,
Roger Diamond, went nuts.

This bail request for $500,000

is really shocking.
I don't believe...

And then, the judge said,
"Hey, if it were up to me,

"it'd be a lot higher,

"because he's, A, a flight risk,

and B, he... he's a
menace to society."

[♪ dramatic, suspenseful
music continues]

[David Sconce]
So, they swoop in

and took me right to jail.

[engine rumbling]

[Scott Brougham] I
was housed on "D Row"

in the LA County Jail
in what they call

"the high-power section,"
which is where they keep

who they consider, uh,
influential g*ng members,

uh, celebrities.

So, everybody from Sean Penn

to some of the most horrendous
murderers you've ever seen,

all on this one tier.

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[indistinct chatter]

And we always knew, like,
who was coming on the tier.

So, Sconce becomes
an inmate on D Row.

And he appeared to be this
unassuming Richie Cunningham,

just a white-bred kid
that didn't belong.

[♪ dramatic music continues]

He wasn't a gangster.

He was just a little p*ssy
that came in off the streets.

[David Sconce] My very
first night in jail,

I was terrified. Terrified!

[laughing and exclaiming]

Man, I was crying for
somebody to bail me out.

[Scott] So, David became
like my next-door neighbor.

And we discussed everything...
me, him, lifestyles.

He did admit to
commingling bodies,

but he said, "Well,
everybody does that."

You know, you
throw three or four

in whatever, the cremator,
or whatever it's called,

and divvy up the ashes,
and everything's good.

But there came a point
where you could just see

when he was telling stories

where he would become
either overly animated,

or kind of excited about sh*t
that the average human being

would go, "What the f*ck?"

And I'm a criminal,
I'm not some sadist.

Um, whereas I would say his
mask started to come down.

[prisoners chattering]

And he, at one point, I
recall, told me that he had...

I... I wanna say it was
an Anarchist Cookbook.

But he had done some research,

reading books on
how to k*ll people

without leaving,
you know, signs.

[♪ ominous music playing]

I remember David telling me

about putting something
in somebody's spaghetti

at a restaurant.

But I couldn't tell
you whose it was.

And was kinda proud of the fact

that he had
outsmarted everybody,

which is the equivalent of...

"Yeah, I did it, but they're
never gonna f*ck' get me."

[engine revving]

[Andre] I told the DA

David Sconce would
talk about the things

that he wanted done
in an open setting.

From what I understand,
he had a... a book...

that had different
formulas for poisons.

He had this book, and he had it

in the car with him, and
he would read things to me.

If we were riding together,
he'd read things to me.

It was called The
Poor Man's James Bond.

[♪ soft eerie music playing]

And it had sneaky ways of...
of hurting and k*lling people.

And he s... it
was... it was cute.

He would talk all the time
and read all this stuff,

and, "Listen to this,
and listen to this."

I really never figured he
would do anything like that.

They asked me, and I
said, "I know he likes

"to read that stuff and
talk about that stuff,

"but I... I think he's all talk.

I don't think that he'd really
ever do anything like that."

So, I... I was defensive
of him at that point.

But they found the
book in his car,

and I... I found
the book his car.

I read it.

[♪ eerie music
continues playing]

[Andre] When he mentioned
the oleander, it was like,

"Oh, this stuff,
you can't trace it.

It's a natural... you know,
so nobody will ever know."

[former employee speaking]

[♪ ominous sting]

-[♪ ominous music playing]
-[wings fluttering]

[sighs heavily]

[♪ dramatic music playing]

♪♪