Ex-LA Mortuary Worker Guilty of Faking Funeral

A former Los Angeles mortuary employee has been convicted of defrauding insurers by staging a fake funeral and attempting to cover it up by cremating a mannequin and cow parts she placed in the casket.

The U.S. attorney's office said Monday that 67-year-old Jean Crump was found guilty of two counts of wire fraud and one count of mail fraud.

Prosecutors say she and three accomplices took out bogus death certificates, purchased a burial plot, buried an empty casket and staged a funeral, then billed $1.2 million to insurance companies.

They say that when insurers investigated, Crump and her cohorts exhumed the coffin, filled it with a mannequin and cow parts and cremated it.

Her accomplices have pleaded guilty in the scam. Crump is to be sentenced Nov. 29.