Convicted Mortician David Sconce Defends His Criminal Mass Cremations, ‘Doesn’t Put Any Value’ in the Deceased

The Mortician, HBO’s upcoming three-part documentary series, will take viewers inside the scandal surrounding a Los Angeles-area funeral home that buried major secrets along with bodies. 

The Joshua Rofé directed series delves into the Pasadena-based, family run Lamb Funeral Home and David Sconce’s headline-making antics after he took over the business.

In 1989, Sconce was sentenced to five years in prison for mutilating corpses, holding mass cremations at $55 a body and hiring strongmen to assault three rival morticians. He was released in 1991 after serving two and a half years, but was sentenced to 25 years to life in 2013 after violating the lifetime probation a judge had imposed on him after a series of further offenses. He was released on parole in 2023.

“Trust is foundational for funeral directors,” a woman says as the trailer begins, showing the inside of where corpses were prepared for cremation. “The unfortunate reality is, like any other occupation, there are some bad apples.”

Newspaper clippings of past articles covering “A gruesome tale from behind mortuary doors” and “Horrific tales from a cremator” appear on the screen. 

Next up, Sconce, 68, who is newly released from prison, confesses: “I don’t put any value on anybody after they’re gone and dead. As they shouldn’t when I’m gone and dead. Love ‘em when they’re here.”

Urns flash across the screen as he shares his grim point-of-view. 

As the trailer continues, it’s revealed that a local businessman first raised concerns about Lamb Funeral Home by “complaining that he smelled burning flesh.”

“David Sconce was doing something that was either illegal or immoral,” another person says.

Sconce then returns and says, “I could cremate one guy in two hours, or you could put 10 of them in there and take two and a half hours.”

“So what would be the difference? There is none,” he adds while shrugging. 

Many of his customers would disagree. 

“They violated and desecrated my father. It’s unconscionable,” a former Lamb Funeral Home client says. 

“That’s not your loved one anymore,” an unmoved Sconce says emphatically. 

More individuals share their alleged experiences with the funeral home owner, claiming Sconce was “always threatening people” and “would talk all the time about sneaky ways of killing people.”

When asked directly if Sconce was part of any murders, a person whose identity is concealed lets out a deep sigh without answering the question. 

As one person puts it, Sconce’s downfall may have been because “David always felt the need to brag about everything, and he never figured out when to shut the f— up.”

“The Mortician chronicles a trusted family-owned funeral home that hid behind a façade of decency and propriety to take advantage of loved ones at their most vulnerable moments. In the early 1980s, David Sconce, scion of the Lamb family, took over the family business and sought to exploit the deceased in numerous ways to expand their earnings. Driven by profit, the Lamb Funeral Home in Pasadena, Calif., engaged in years of morally questionable and inhumane practices,” per a synopsis. 

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In an exclusive statement provided to PEOPLE, Rofé says, “One of my favorite genres is L.A. noir. From Sunset Boulevard to The Long Goodbye and Mulholland Drive. Stories that explore the underbelly of this incredibly complex city. In The Mortician, I found a chilling story about the business of death that was distinctly L.A. noir but was also layered with our relationship with grief and loss. I feel fortunate to have been able to explore this world with my partners at HBO.” 

He and Steven J. Berger also executive produced the project. 

The Mortician premieres June 1 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, with new episodes airing on Sundays.