Former Altadena Crematory Owner Sentenced

A former Altadena crematory operator was sentenced today to 25 years to life in state prison after he admitted violating his lifelong probation, stemming from a conviction for conducting mass cremations and stealing gold from the teeth of corpses.

David Wayne Sconce, 56, made headlines in the late 1980s when he pleaded guilty to the gruesome charges of commingling bodies and taking gold from the dead.

Sconce was involved in the Lamb Funeral Home case in Pasadena in the late 1980s, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

It was during that time when Sconce was accused of mutilating corpses and mishandling cremations at his family’s funeral home, the Pasadena Star-News reported.

Sconce was later charged with the murder of Timothy Raymond Waters, who ran the Alpha Society cremation service in Burbank.

That case was dismissed when an expert hired by both prosecutors and the defense failed to turn up any trace of the oleander poison that another expert claimed to have found.

Sconce was next charged with soliciting the murder of a former deputy district attorney assigned to his case. He pleaded guilty in exchange for probation and moved to Arizona, working as bus driver and maintenance man.

At the time of his latest violation, Sconce was living in Montana. He appeared January in Missoula County Justice Court and agreed to waive extradition to California, where he was sought for persistent violations of his lifetime parole, the Missoulian reported.

In Missoula County, Montana, Sconce was sentenced last year to five years’ probation on a federal charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Sconce was extradited to California, where he had been held in Men’s Central Jail without bail since Feb. 7.