All language subtitles for The Mortician (2025) - S01E01 - Episode One - 1080p MAX WebDL H265 EAC3 5.1

When you first are
grieving a loss,

it's really difficult.

This is a time of saying
goodbye to your loved one

and doing the best you can for them
because you love them and they loved you.

My dad and I were very close.

He was my sweet loving
daddy who just, you know,

stroked my head as a child
and loved me so much.

He died in September of 1986.

He was taken to the Pasadena
Crematory that the Lambs owned.

I trusted that the people
would take care of him.

To have that trust be
violated is unconscionable.

I received my dad's ashes
in a white cardboard box,

still warm to the touch.

When I found out they violated
and desecrated my father,

I was shocked, I was devastated.

It was just horrible.

David Sconce, he's
just a monster.

He's evil.

Being in funeral service, we
cannot bring our work home.

No one wants to talk over dinner
about what we did during the day.

We see people in
their worst situation.

We see them at
the time of death,

and then we see them beyond
death into decomposition.

Many people don't
want that image.

In fact, we do our best
as funeral directors

so that you don't have
to see that image.

We embalm, we prepare, we
dress, we casket, we cosmetize.

We do everything we possibly can

so that the client family
can see their loved one

looking as though there
was no pain or trauma.

In today's environment,
we don't talk about death.

And those of us in funeral
service, day in, day out,

a constant familiarity
with death.

For funeral directors,
trust is foundational.

It's the most prestigious
of responsibilities.

The unfortunate reality is,
like any other occupation,

there are some bad apples.

David Sconce had been a
student here at Cypress College

and had taken some of the courses
in the Mortuary Science program.

The scandal had
huge reverberations.

But after all these years,

I don't think he's
ever told his story.

Will you get an
interview with David?

Are you really?

That would be phenomenal.

Yeah, I'm still in shock
from being out of custody.

I can't believe somebody's
actually taken an interest

in what I've known for so long.

I'm an open book for you guys.

There ain't... There's
nothing you can't ask me.

Okay, going back to
the start of it all.

Back when I was a kid,

my grandfather, Lawrence Lamb, owned
the Lamb Funeral Home in Pasadena.

The family would spend all
our time at the mortuary.

Even as a little kid,

being around death
was not a big deal.

You know, I remember there's no
reason to be afraid of anything.

The Lamb Funeral
Home was a mortuary

that a lot of people
used and trusted.

And even in the mortuary business,
they were really well-known as a place

of family and Christian values.

The Lamb family did
all of our business.

My grandfather was the first to
use them, and that was in 1946.

If you were anyone,
you used Lambs.

The Lamb family was an extremely
prominent old Pasadena family.

Charles Lamb established his
funeral home in the '20s.

He was a very dignified,
respected member of the community.

And then, his son, Lawrence Lamb, took
over the funeral home around 1950.

I knew Lawrence Lamb. Great
guy. Well-respected family.

He managed the business
until the 1980s.

His daughter, Laurieanne Lamb,
and her husband, Jerry Sconce,

ultimately took over
the family business.

And for many years, they
operated it perfectly,

until their son, David Sconce, got
involved in the family business.

I've had my grandmother,
aunt, uncle, cousin, father,

they've all used Lamb, up
until... Mother was the last.

When my mother died,
I was just in pain.

And of course, I was elected to
go up and visit with the Lambs.

I said, "I would like my
mother's wedding ring with her."

But the lady I talked to
said, "No, don't do it."

She was very adamant

and she said, "No, you
would be much happier

and it will give you a lot of pleasure
and memories to keep the ring."

And I thought that was odd.

I think she was trying to tell me
something that she couldn't tell me.

Later, I realized she was right.

The funeral business,

it's a pretty lucrative
business, and it can be.

I mean, it's steady.
Everybody dies.

A funeral is, next to
buying a house or a car,

the biggest expense that
the average American

will ever have.

The questions around how
we dispose of the dead

are a driving force
in human history.

There's a desire, you
know, if not a compulsion,

to commemorate the dead,
to do right by the dead.

But for many years, Americans
didn't have a funeral industry.

Family members and religious leaders
took care of the body themselves.

It was very intimate.

During the Civil War,

the process of
embalming takes hold,

and becomes known as the
American way of death.

There's a great deal of ambivalence
around the emergence of these new figures.

The funeral director, "the
mortician," "the undertaker."

These entrepreneurs

who wanted to be understood by
the public as professionals.

As people you can trust.

They modeled themselves
off of doctors and lawyers,

and dressed the part.

Traditionally, funeral homes
are family-run businesses.

It's what we think of as kind
of mom-and-pop institutions.

And clearly, it worked.

Funeral service became a
multi-billion-dollar business.

So, you see people turn to
cremation as a low-cost alternative.

My family was heavily invested
in the community in Pasadena.

You know, my mom's
parents were loaded.

My mom, she was in
the 1954 Rose Parade.

My dad played
football in college,

and he was a PE instructor
at a high school.

I dreamed of playing football.

I'd played for a while,
but all my dreams ended

when I stepped in a gopher
hole and tore my knee up.

I was crushed.

One day, my mom and dad
called me and they said,

"Your mother's gonna buy the
mortuary business from her dad.

"She's not gonna pay
any money to do it.

She's just gonna come
in there and run it,"

'cause he was getting older.

I never saw myself working
in the funeral industry.

But, you know, they said, "Hey, look,
there's this place, Cypress College.

Why don't you get your
mortuary certification?"

You know, I wasn't interested
in counseling families.

I already knew how to
embalm from years ago.

Old trade guy taught
me when I was about 12.

But at that time,
cremation was increasing.

And we had this
really old facility

that's run by diesel fuel
and gravity, you know.

It was called the
Pasadena Crematorium.

And it was up there
at Mountain View.

Mountain View Cemetery actually
was established in 1882

by my great-great-grandfather.

We have our own cemetery,

funeral home, and crematory.

The Lamb Funeral Home's
cremation facility,

the Pasadena Crematorium, was
located within our grounds.

It was a separate business
right there on our property.

And they only cremated individuals
that used the Lamb Funeral Home.

Well, when I started going
to the mortuary school,

we got to talking.

It was like, you know,
"Where are you guys from,"

or, "What mortuary
you work for?"

I would just ask him, I'd say,
"Who does your cremations?"

Because most places didn't
have a crematory of their own.

"Oh, we send 'em to Grandview.

Oh, we send 'em
to Angeles Abbey."

They would have to use
their own manpower,

take it to wherever they were
getting the case cremated,

spend the money, and have
to come all the way back

and pick 'em up.

I go, "Well, what
do you get charged?"

"Oh, 250, 300 bucks."

And I thought, "Wow.

We can cremate a whole lot more
bodies than we're cremating now."

And I can pick up cremations.

I go, why wouldn't
somebody be interested

in having me do their
work at a lot lower price?

So, that's what it
really started as.

And it took off.

Around 1982 was
when David Sconce

started to offer their cremation
services out to other funeral homes.

Because David's
crematory operation

was right there on our property.

I do recall,

every time that
crematory was used,

you could see a little smoke
when they started it up.

Maybe it was used two times a
week, maybe three times a week.

And then, we started to notice

they were doing 10
cremations a week.

It was in those early
days that David Sconce

was the sole owner and operator.
He was doing all the work.

He stayed pretty
much to his business,

came in, unloaded the cases,
did the cremations, and left.

Seemed like a nice fellow.

Every day, in my old Dodge van,

you know, I took the seats out, I'd
drive around picking up dead folks.

I had pickups from
probably 40, 50 mortuaries

from Santa Barbara to San Diego.

When he started the service,
the way he generated business

was he came in and undercut
everybody on their price.

My costs for each case...

a case is a body, a
case is a dead body...

would have been the
cardboard container

and whatever diesel fuel was
used for the actual cremation.

The boxes were five bucks
each, and the diesel fuel

was probably less than that.

I'd cremate the body,

and then return the ash to the
mortuary or scatter at sea.

I charged 55 bucks.

It was a pretty good deal.

So, there was a reason
my service business grew,

as it grew pretty
much overnight.

I hired these huge guys.

Dave Edwards, Danny Galambos,

and Andre, former
football players.

You know, I trained
'em to pick up cases.

Danny Galambos, loudmouth,
unibrow, big Hungarian bodybuilder.

Danny's dad, he's an old mob guy

and he ran around with the
Russians out in the valley.

I didn't know until
after I hired him.

But anyway, Dave Edwards was
much brighter and soft-spoken.

Andre came in, he was a
friend of one or both of 'em.

Back in the day, I was a poor
ex-college football player.

You know, bumming around
at my parents' house,

you know, for six months a
year, and I needed a job.

My friend David Edwards had
started doing deliveries

and pickups for David
Sconce in the crematorium,

and they needed somebody to drive
the truck three days a week.

So, I started working
for David Sconce.

I don't know anything.

I don't know what I'm supposed to
do other than pick up the bodies.

I almost threw up the first
day driving the truck.

I'm in a 14-foot box truck.

No lift gate, no air.

I had to go into the mortuary,
help the guy push the gurney out,

and put the bodies in
the back of the truck.

They had been out of the
cold room for a while,

so there were odors.

There's no doubt about what it
is you're smelling, you know?

The smell is death.

It was real hard.

The whole time, I'm like,

just be cool, you know.

Remember how much
money you're making.

And you know, that's how
you get through it, right?

Two-hundred-fifty bucks a day.

Once you got back to Pasadena,

the guys there
check the paperwork,

check the tags, and
then do what they did.

I saw some things
that weren't nice.

But that wasn't
really my business.

I just drove the truck,
you know what I'm saying?

The business was
going really good.

I had all these guys picking
up cases to be cremated.

Everything went so quickly.

And then, right in the
middle of all of it,

I met Barbara.

When I first met David?

He was very big. Big as life.

I was working retail,
and he came in.

The first thing I remember
was his white blonde hair,

and his massive physique,
and the hair on his legs.

I don't know how specific
you want me to get,

but he was just
like this god to me.

I met Barbara at the mall.

And she's selling suits.

You know when you see somebody
and you go in your head, you go,

"Ah, that's the woman
that's gonna have my kids"?

Yeah, I really thought that.

So, I had a Black
American Express card

and I thought, okay,
I'm gonna impress her.

She looks at the card and she looks at
me, and she looks at the card again.

So, she real quick writes
her phone number down.

Then, we started
dating after that.

He was funny. He was fun.

He had a beautiful family.

Jerry had been a football coach.

Laurieanne was very
active in her church.

Laurieanne, and
Jerry, and David,

and his brother Gary were
the all-American family.

They had actually been
in an ad for Maytag.

They were the Maytag family.

I was very infatuated,
fell in love right away.

The day of the wedding, his grandfather,
Lawrence Lamb, came to me and said,

"Are you sure you
want to marry him?"

And I said, "Yes, I
do. I'm so happy."

And then, Lucile Lamb, his
grandma, came to me and said,

"Are you sure you
wanna do this?"

His father, Jerry, says to me,
"You know, you can back out."

Well, you know, the
day of your wedding,

these are things you
really don't wanna hear.

Three people ask you if this
is exactly what you want to do?

I thought it was very strange,

but I didn't let it stop me.

I wanted to marry him.

I guess right-hand man

with David Sconce is probably
what you would call me.

I was always with him.

I always did
everything with him,

and I'm the only one
that did cremations,

because, you know, I was the
only one he trusted to do it.

I was from the north
side of Pasadena.

I was a gang member.
I was getting high,

having fun, doing stupid stuff,
getting in trouble, going to jail.

Never thought of working
at a crematorium.

But my cousin got a job
working in the cemetery.

He introduced me to David.

I got hired to work there.

I went with Dave
to the crematorium.

Dave showed me how it all went.

There was two ovens.
Showed me how to load it,

how to close 'em, how
to put the burners on.

So, and that was it.

He paid me cash for whatever I did,
somewhere around $6,000 a month,

in my early 20s, which
was a lot of money.

Being my background of not
having the education or skills.

I was taking care of my family
for the first time in a long time.

So, you know what
I mean, it's like,

whatever he wanted me
to do, I was gonna do.

As time went on, David's business
seemed to ramp up steadily.

We never saw inside the building. All
we saw was the truck coming and going

at all hours of
the day and night.

It was like an assembly line.

Now, typically, a funeral home,

when they have a cremation
case, will bring the remains

to the crematory in
their own vehicle.

That individual is
placed in a chamber.

And then, the process of cremation
usually takes about two hours.

Because you have to allow
the chamber to cool down,

before you can safely
remove the cremated remains

of one individual and start
cremating another one.

The Pasadena Crematorium
had two chambers.

That would mean they could
properly do four cremations

in an eight-hour day.

You just sort of had
to scratch your head

and try to figure out how
they could be unloading

15 and 20 individuals at
a time, and then come back

five or six hours later
with another 15 or 20.

They must have a pretty efficient
way of doing their cremations.

David made everything seem
quite normal. Everything.

He'd put like two or
three bodies in each oven.

At a time.

I saw what they're doing.

They would break a
collarbone, or a leg,

or an arm to get it in a position to
be the most compact to fit in the oven.

They had this gaff hook
used to move, you know,

sides of beef around.

You know, hooking the bodies under
the armpit and dragging 'em in there.

And there was a running competition
between David Sconce and Johnny,

on who was able to load the most
bodies in the oven at one time.

Whoever had the record,
they were proud of it.

So, it wasn't so, like,
nasty, or scary, or spooky,

or ugly, or whatever it was,
it was just part of the job.

This is just disposing of the rotten
meat. The soul is gone anyway.

First thing I thought of was,

how do they know which
ashes to put in which box?

And then I realize, oh,
fuck, they don't know.

Sure.

Well, back then, because
of the multiple cremations,

see, I could cremate one
guy in, like, two hours,

or you could put ten of 'em in there
and it takes two and a half hours.

So, what would be
the difference?

There is none.

Hard-hearted as that
sounds, there is none.

Anybody in this business
who runs a crematory

can never get all of
the ash out of that oven

before they put another body
in there to be cremated.

It's a perforated
kind of a brick floor,

and there's ash in there
from dozens of people.

It's fact, it's how things are.

So, to me, commingling
of ash is not a big deal.

I don't put any value in anybody
after they're gone and dead,

as they shouldn't in
when I'm gone and dead.

That's not a person anymore.

Oh, sure.

Yeah, I worried about, you know,

because like I said, it was
a misdemeanor at the time.

And I stupidly
justified it by saying,

"Oh, it's a misdemeanor and nobody
cares about these people anyway."

Because most of my cases
were scatter at sea.

It would show up on
the disposition permit.

There's no visitors, there's
no viewing, you know?

These relatives didn't want any
part of that person back, okay?

I don't understand how
they have a difficulty

with someone who's
gonna go in the ocean

and be commingled with the other guy
who goes in the ocean right after him.

You know, why is that so bad?

It's just not logical, it
doesn't make any sense,

and I've never accepted that.

I just haven't.

You know what? There's no difference
in anybody's cremated ash.

There's no difference.
It's potash and lime.

That's it. A little bit of
carb... I mean, it's all the same.

People just gotta be more in
control of their emotions,

because that's not your loved one
anymore, and it never has been.

Love 'em when
they're here. Period.

Nancy and I lived in the
same apartment building.

We met at the pool, and
we just, we just clicked.

She was very, very good-hearted.

She taught English at
Beverly Hills High.

And she loved her job.

I was in the
restaurant business.

I worked at Chasen's.

Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr.,

Alfred Hitchcock... everybody
in show business was there.

We both worked very hard, but we
also had a lot of fun together,

and made the most of the short
time that we had together.

And then, she started to
get really, really sick.

We went to a neurologist,
and he told us straight out,

he says, "You've got some
tumors in your brain."

I was shocked.

That's an understatement.

And did the best that we
could to make her comfortable.

That lasted about a
month before she passed.

Devastating.

She was 45 when she passed.

She didn't want to be put in
the ground with all the bugs.

So, she wanted to be cremated.

One of our friends had
given us the name, Lambs.

It was mentioned to me that it
was the biggest and the best.

They just helped
me pick out an urn.

We had a farewell get-together
on their premises.

We paid our last respect.

It was heartbreaking.

How do I even know the ashes that
they gave me was Nancy's ashes?

It could have been anybody.

Or it could have been ten
people put in there together.

I didn't know, you know.

Even today, I still never know.

Everything with David
was fast, fast, fast.

It was just one
thing after another.

Moving, and building,
and buying, and business.

And he had so many things
on the fire all the time.

He would come home, and
he would be on the phone,

watching TV, and reading
at the same time.

His brain just never shut down.

David took me to the
crematory three times total.

It didn't interest me. I
didn't want to be there.

It was just this tiny little
house that had a chimney.

I didn't know much
about his work.

I just knew that business
was going pretty well.

David's parents, Laurieanne and
Jerry, were running the funeral home.

But they gave David complete
oversight of the crematorium.

And they were very hands-off.

That was David's business.

He was charging so much less
per body than anybody else.

It was, you know,
it was a no-brainer.

Funeral homes all through
the area flocked to him.

David became a real
topic of conversation,

and all of a sudden, people
started chit-chatting

about the number of cremations
that Lamb Funeral Home was doing,

and that that crematory
just couldn't handle

the volume of cremations.

"Well, you know, well,
how many is he doing?

Is he doing 100 a
year or 100 a month?"

Competitors were like,
"What the hell," you know?

Just, "How can this be?"

And one of the people who was
complaining most vociferously

was a guy named Tim Waters.

Tim Waters was in his early 20s.

He's this huge guy.

He's got these big, meaty
hands with rings all over it,

covered in jewelry.

He was a brash kind of guy.

He was a go-getter who had plans
to make it in the funeral business.

Tim owned Alpha
Society in Burbank,

which was a cremation provider

offering these lower-cost
cremation services.

He did not have his
own crematorium.

And David Sconce was trying
to get Tim's business.

The story was that Tim
and David had a meeting.

Tim was a young guy, but
he was an intelligent guy.

Now, David's offering to do his
cremations very inexpensively.

Tim understood
that the only thing

that could make up for
that is high volume.

And after that, Tim
started telling people

that he didn't trust David.

Tim was stirring things up,

and giving a black eye
to David's operation.

I had no idea so many
people died every day.

You know, you start
tripping and everything,

like, with all these
dead bodies around you.

Could've sworn that guy moved.

It could get bad.

Oh, my God, man,
this is too much.

We had been married
for a little while.

And David came home one day
from work with a Styrofoam cup.

And it had "AU" written
on the side of the cup.

I didn't even know
what "AU" was.

Then, I found him with the cup

sitting on the floor in the garage
cracking teeth with a hammer.

He just broke the
tooth, grabbed the gold,

put it back in the cup,
swept the teeth away.

"AU" means gold.

He sold the gold.

This is normal?

This is not normal.
This is not normal.

I just sat there thinking,
what world am I in?

What did I do? What did I do?

"Can you do this for me?" And I said,
"I don't really want to do that, Dave."

So, he didn't make me do
it. He did it himself.

He would have a pair of
pliers and a screwdriver.

That's about it.

All the bodies were
inspected for gold.

He was making $20,000,
$30,000 a month

just from the gold.

Removing gold teeth.
Removing gold teeth, okay?

You know, I can't
say it wasn't done,

because my employees
did it at length.

No, I did it on request a
couple of different times.

Family request.
Family wanted it back.

"Well, we just want 'em
back." Okay. Who knows?

Dave was very free and
open with spending money.

You know, he's buying
everybody beers.

You know, food, "You
want something to eat?"

David Sconce and I were very close.
Not only at work, after work,

Throwing balloons at people.

He had this Corvette.

"I BRN 4U" was
his license plate.

He's making a joke out of it.

"I own a crematorium and I
burn bodies for a living."

Why would you put
your business out,

like, on the street like
that, for anybody to see?

Okay, there was a lot
of money in our house.

We had nice cars, we had
boats, we had jet skis.

It was good when it was
good. It was very good.

I was working with David.

I had fun. David
knew how to have fun.

Once a month we'd fly to Las Vegas,
each put 100 bucks into a pot.

The last man left
standing got the pot,

and that was our
business meeting.

A lot of people were making
money in the business.

But not the kind of money
David Sconce was making.

So, how was he making it?

Tim Waters was asking questions.

He did his own little digging.

He was talking to other
funeral directors.

And supposedly,

Tim was considering writing
up a story about David Sconce

for this prominent funeral home
magazine, Mortuary Management,

which was run by a
guy named Ron Hast.

And Ron and Tim
were ready to rock

with some really
heavy allegations.

My mother gets a phone
call from that magazine.

And she's got tears in her eyes.

You know, my mom would
give anything to anybody.

I mean, she worked hard. She
counseled families all the time.

She did the hair for
all the funerals.

She played the organ
for all the services.

She got all the flowers,
she did the chapel.

She did everything
for that place.

But with how the
cremation facility ran,

that was my business.

So, she didn't need some
windbag threatening her

with a bad article, you
know, making her cry.

And I told her I'd
take care of it.

David Sconce approaches us

and says, "Hey, I'm getting a
problem from a couple of guys.

You know, I want you guys to
go and send 'em a message."

He was impressed
with Danny Galambos,

David Edwards, and myself because
of our athletic backgrounds.

He liked having guys around him

that were... the perception
was, "These are my friends,

"but if you get outta line
and if I don't like you,

these guys will fuck you up."

There were business cards
that Sconce made up.

He gave us a nickname,
Big Men Unlimited.

He thought we were his henchmen.

So, one night, David Edwards,
Danny Galambos, and myself

go to Ron Hast's residence.

We, you know, beat
him up, rough him up.

You know, it's like, "Don't fuck with me,
or you're gonna get more of the same."

Okay.

That one was Danny
and another guy,

and I wasn't part of that.

So, I don't know anything about
it, other than it happened.

Tim Waters got beat up,
and I mean, really beat up.

David's guys showed up at
his office late at night.

They came in

and beat the shit out of him.

David Sconce had this idea that,

"If my little operation, my
empire of what I've got going

"is threatened, I'm
gonna deal with it.

I've got this little
mafia-like operation going."

I mean, who gets thugs
in this day and age?

Waters was just a mess.

These guys really
did a number on him.

And a lot of people
believed that would be it.

And Tim, I guess, just
wouldn't, you know, shut up.

Two months later...

he was dead.

The story was that he
had gone out to eat,

supposedly with David,

and shortly thereafter
fell very, very ill.

He died of what was
apparently a heart attack.

At 24. Come on.

When I heard that Tim
Waters had died...

'Kay. Well, I mean,
it's not unexpected.

If you look at a guy
who's maybe 350 pounds,

and he's five-foot whatever,

well, yeah, he's gonna
have a heart attack, okay?

Waters didn't do anything to me.

I mean, I think I saw
him one time in my life.

But other than that, I had
no interaction with him.

I never went to lunch with
him or whatever, you know.

That's it. That's
all there is to it.

When I heard that
Tim Waters had died,

you know, in my mind, I'm like,

"Fucking Sconce did that."