HBO’s The Mortician: The Spine-Chilling Real Horror Behind A Cremation Scandal You Won’t Believe
HBO’s The Mortician uncovers the shocking true story of David Sconce—a cremation scandal so disturbing, it feels like horror fiction. But every word is real.
If you thought horror movies were chilling, wait till you meet The Mortician. HBO’s latest docuseries, which dropped on June 1, takes viewers inside a true tale that sounds too dark to be real. But it is. And this isn’t some fictional crime drama; this happened in broad daylight.
Back in the 1980s, David Sconce ran a cremation business out of Pasadena, California, and turned it into a full-blown horror show. What makes it worse? Sconce isn’t some faceless villain hiding in the shadows. He’s right there on screen in the HBO series, talking like it’s just business. He says that he refuses to place any importance on anyone once they become absent and lifeless. That pretty much sums up the tone of the show and the man.
Mass Cremation Scandal That Shocked Pasadena
In the sunny suburbs of Pasadena, Lamb Funeral Home had a long-standing reputation. Then David Sconce stepped in. He was the grandson of the original founder and the son of the current owners, Jerry and Laurieanne. By the early ’80s, he had taken over and turned the family funeral business into a mass-production cremation mill. (Per Screenrant)
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Now I’m watching this #themortician Now I’m even scared to be cremated. 15-20 bodies in a chamber?! Breaking bones to make them fit. You’re entrusting someone with your loved ones and they’re desecrating them. You get your loved one and everyone else’s. pic.twitter.com/ZYtRWm5Iy6
— RIP Marshmallow 🌈 (Certified Pasta Hater) (@Jaded_Chinx) June 7, 2025
His secret sauce was quantity over dignity. According to former workers, he’d cremate up to 15 bodies at once. Sometimes more. To squeeze them in, bones were snapped like twigs. He even ran contests to see who could load the most into the oven. That’s not all. Clothes were stripped, and jewelry was yanked off the dead. Gold teeth cracked out with a hammer and dumped into a Styrofoam cup marked “Au.”
The whistle finally blew in the most unexpected way. In 1987, a WWII vet who had helped liberate Auschwitz lived near Sconce’s new desert cremation site. He recognized the sickening smell of burning flesh and dialed 911. Investigators arrived, and what they found was stomach-turning. Trash bins full of ashes.
When Profit Trumped Humanity & Justice In The Mortician
So, why was Sconce even doing this? One word: money. His cremations were cheap, and the speed unmatched. He could offer $100 cremations while others charged double. But it wasn’t until that desert call that the truth spilled out.
#THEMORTICIAN: david sconce is a real piece of shit. i have never seen someone so unremorseful in my life. he should’ve never been let out of prison. truly felt like i was watching a narcissistic psychopath in action right before my eyes. pic.twitter.com/Kq6jiXwhvE
In 1989, Sconce pleaded guilty to mishandling human remains, mutilating corpses, and even stealing from the dead. He got five years. Served just two. But trouble followed. He was later busted for plotting to murder a rival and, in 2012, landed a 25-to-life sentence for having a stolen gun while on probation. Released on parole in 2023, he now lives quietly in California.
In The Mortician, Sconce doesn’t show remorse. Not once. He even brags about loading multiple bodies in one cremation.
For families, it was betrayal at its worst. And The Mortician shows just how far one man went when money mattered more than mourning. If you can stomach true crime with a haunting twist, The Mortician is streaming now on HBO. Just maybe don’t watch it alone.
