HBO’s New True Crime Docuseries Unveils the Shocking Story of a Funeral Home Empire Gone Wrong
[tvacute.com] David Sconce, once known as the fast-rising businessman in the funeral industry, became the face of one of the most disturbing scandals in American cremation history. Now, decades later, he’s back in the spotlight through HBO’s chilling three-part docuseries THE MORTICIAN, which debuted on June 1. The series gives a detailed, raw account of how Sconce went from a small-town mortuary heir to one of California’s most disgraced cremators.
Sconce, who pled guilty to multiple charges including the mishandling of human remains in 1989, shares his side of the story in this haunting series. Through old footage, recent interviews, and testimonies from former employees and victims’ families, THE MORTICIAN exposes the horrific practices that once defined Sconce’s short-lived empire—and gives an update on where he is now.
WHO IS DAVID SCONCE?
David Sconce was born on March 27, 1956, in Santa Barbara, California. He grew up in Pasadena in a family that had long ties to the funeral business. His mother, Laurieanne Lamb Sconce, had inherited Lamb Funeral Home, a reputable and long-standing business founded by David’s great-grandfather. His father, Jerry Sconce, was a former football player and physical education teacher.
Despite growing up around death, Sconce initially wanted nothing to do with mortuary work. He aspired to become an athlete. But a devastating knee injury cut short his dream. With his football career over, his parents suggested he study mortuary science. He eventually agreed and enrolled in Cypress College’s mortuary program.
That’s where he discovered a business opportunity few others were tapping into—cremation.
THE RISE OF THE CREMATION EMPIRE
In the early 1980s, Sconce took over the family cremation services at Lamb Funeral Home. While traditional funeral homes charged hundreds for cremations, Sconce undercut everyone—offering his services for just $55. He quickly started offering cremation services to funeral homes across California.
But how could he offer such low prices?
The answer is disturbing.
Sconce maximized profits by stuffing multiple bodies into a single cremation oven, sometimes as many as 15 at once. He even admitted to breaking limbs to fit more bodies in, a practice confirmed by several former employees.
In 1981, Lamb Funeral Home handled under 200 cremations. By 1986, that number had ballooned to over 24,000. The business was booming—but behind the scenes, things were horrifyingly wrong.
WHEN GREED TOOK OVER
The series makes it clear: Sconce didn’t just cremate bodies in bulk. He stole from them too. Jewelry, clothing, gold teeth—he took it all, pawning valuables for extra profit. His ex-wife, Barbara Hunt, recalls a chilling scene where she found Sconce in their garage, cracking teeth with a hammer to collect dental gold. The gold was placed in a Styrofoam cup labeled with “Au”—the chemical symbol for gold.
When his Pasadena crematorium burned down in 1983, Sconce simply moved operations to a remote location in San Bernardino County. There, he used ceramic kilns to burn even more bodies—without proper equipment or oversight.
It wasn’t long before the smell gave him away. A World War II veteran living nearby, who had helped liberate Auschwitz, recognized the scent of burning flesh and alerted authorities. That phone call helped spark an investigation that would unravel Sconce’s empire.
HOW DAVID SCONCE GOT CAUGHT
Sconce’s operation came under scrutiny when local funeral directors noticed he was performing more cremations than anyone else—and for less money. Investigations revealed he was cremating hundreds of bodies illegally, often breaking laws and moral codes along the way.
In 1989, Sconce pleaded guilty to multiple counts, including mishandling human remains and removing dental gold from corpses. He served a short sentence, but the damage had been done.
Former employees testified to the conditions under Sconce’s leadership—describing a workplace filled with secrecy, callousness, and a race to see who could cremate the most bodies. They admitted to losing track of which remains belonged to which families. Many families received ashes that were mixed with others or weren’t their loved ones at all.
PRISON TIME
Sconce served a few years in prison after his 1989 conviction. However, he didn’t stay out of trouble. In 2013, he was arrested again—this time for possessing a firearm, violating the terms of his lifetime probation. He was incarcerated once more and only released on parole in 2023.
Even after decades, David Sconce has shown little remorse for his actions. In The Mortician, he openly discusses his methods, rationalizing the practice of mass cremation. To him, the comingling of ashes was irrelevant. “There’s no difference in anybody’s cremated ash,” he states. “That’s not your loved one anymore.” His Corvette once bore a chilling vanity plate: “I BRN 4U.”
His ex-wife, Barbara Hunt, provides some of the most disturbing insights. She recalls discovering her husband breaking teeth for gold in their garage. “He sold the gold,” she said. “I just sat there thinking, what world am I in?”
LIFE AFTER PRISON: WHERE IS DAVID SCONCE NOW?
Today, David Sconce is a free man, reportedly living quietly and out of the public spotlight. But he remains a controversial figure, especially now that THE MORTICIAN has brought his story back into the public eye. Despite the public outrage, Sconce remains largely unapologetic.
In the docuseries, he calmly explains his choices and shows little remorse for the trauma he caused. “I don’t put any value in anybody after they’re gone and dead,” he says in one scene. He defends his practice of cremating multiple bodies at once by saying crematory ovens are never 100% clean between cremations, so ashes are always technically mixed.
For Sconce, it seems, it was all just business.
THE AFTERMATH AND LEGACY
Sconce’s crimes led to massive changes in cremation laws and funeral home regulations across the United States. Today, strict rules require crematories to undergo unannounced inspections, and the illegal harvesting of dental gold is classified as a felony.
Funeral directors who appear in THE MORTICIAN stress that David Sconce was a “bad apple,” not representative of the industry as a whole. Still, the damage to public trust was deep. The scandal left countless families forever unsure whether the ashes they received truly belonged to their loved ones.
Director Joshua Rofé, who helmed THE MORTICIAN, believes the story resonates far beyond the funeral industry. It’s about unchecked greed and what happens when someone treats human life—and death—like a business transaction. “It’s about cutting corners, maximizing profits, and removing all humanity from the equation,” Rofé said in an interview.
Giving Sconce a platform was a controversial choice, but Rofé believes hearing directly from him is crucial to understanding the full weight of the scandal. In one chilling moment during filming, Sconce asked what Rofé would do if offered a fortune to make him look bad. “There was a look in his eye unlike any I’d seen before,” Rofé recalled. “It was just scary.”
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