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Adrian Kline is suspected of selling dental gold taken from the dead.
A Colorado embalmer saw a golden opportunity in dead people’s teeth, police say.
Adrian David Kline, 43, of Brighton, is accused of stealing gold teeth from bodies and cremated remains he handled at funeral homes and selling them to local pawn shops, the Longmont Times-Call reported.
A Boulder County Grand jury indicted Kline on eight counts of providing false information to a pawnbroker and two counts of providing false information to a secondhand dealer. He turned himself in Friday, the newspaper said.
Longmont police allege that Kline, who worked as a contract embalmer at multiple funeral homes in the Denver metropolitan area, removed gold crowns from bodies prior to embalming and removed dental gold from cremated remains.
Longmont pawnbrokers found it “creepy” and “weird” that he was pawning dental gold repeatedly and called police, according to the Times-Call.
Valuables and metals removed from bodies are either supposed to be disposed of or recycled, investigators told the newspaper.
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OK- so recycling versus a pawnbroker differs how?
My father died last year, and he had a few gold crowns- I was thinking that it made a LOT more sense to pull those babies and sell the gold rather than vaporize it to go into the atmosphere-
It's a little strange to think about, but he didn't care.
If you think about it, a couple of teeth a day, and you are talking about somewhere in the $250,000 range or more a year. That's a lotd of gold going to waste, if they are being cremated. Buried even!
I understand the "respect for the dead" thing and all, but if one removes the personal aspect of it, it's quite the goldmine, not mention the heavy metal contamination of the environment...though gold is pretty inert.
Probably more would be allowed if fillings were made of lead.
This guy would have made a good extra on the Addams Family.
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It was always understood that gold teeth were removed from the remains. And yes, that's called "recycling."
Now, removing the deceased persons' gold teeth and then, handing them to the family? Unless requested. That's creepy. Leaving fillings on the entombed, well, then grave-robbers. Gold only melts, so, that won't work.
No, I have nothing to do with the funeral business (not yet, anyway). But I've made final arrangements for relations. And do what you want with gold; doesn't do them any good in Heaven.
Dude looks like a meth head! Except for his complexion!
Fine..if those who insist on calling it "recycling"...the family should have been consulted prior and asked if they wanted this "recycling" performed. If so, the "recycled" materials should have then been given to the family. I for one, would not want a deceased loved ones teeth. It would creep me out totally. Yet to each their own. He certainly didn't have the right to do what he did without permission and most certainly didn't have the right to profit from it unless expressly given permission. Doing what he did without permission is what I would deem defacing the deceased...literally.
Hell, He's an American capitalist in the best sense, at least, in the best sense these days. A few years ago a "Mortician" squealed on a hospital for stealing organs from people who had died while under the hospitals care. Turned out the Mortician was pissed because the hospital was harvesting before He could. Good ole American greed! Wall street has taught us much.
My grandfather demanded we remove his teeth after he died, he went as far as to write it in his will.. i was not going to reach in to his mouth for his crown, he said it wont hurt I will be dead.. He was pissed when I told him I wouldn't do it, he said he paid 1500 for that crown- you all could benefit from it.. Still I am not taking pliers like a barbarian to your mouth grandpa..
He died a few months later and my mom and uncle were setting up his cremation and my mom decides since he was so adamant about his teeth she asked the funeral home about removing them for us, they said it would cost 500 per tooth to remove, she said what happens if you cremate them with them still intact, they said it melts down in to gold balls, that we could sift threw his ashes for the gold.. Once again I'm not throwing grandpa in to a flour sifter and looking for gold..
BUT this guy in the article is a freak, who the hell goes gold mining in dead people's mouths.. I can understand if the family doesn't want the gold but damn don't go yanking dead people teeth that is just sick and wrong, yeah I know they are dead and don't care but still just the thought is gross..
Recycling or disposing: I think he was doing both, albeit illegally. I think if the family didn't want the gold from cremated remains, they could have signed them over LEGALLY to him. As for taking them from the bodies during embalming, that is just plain theft! You do NOT steal jewelry from a body prior to sealing the casket, nor should you take their gold crowns or filings!
My father was a mortician/funeral director. He would have hated this story, as it gives them ALL a bad reputation! MOST funeral directors/embalmers/morticians would NEVER even consider doing anything like this! There are always bad apples in every profession. Just glad he was stopped.
This dude is so creepy uncool, I think I will use his photo as my new facebook profile picture :)
Any gold removed from a body should be returned to the family of the deceased. Otherwise, in my opinion, it's stealing. I had no idea that the gold could be removed and not returned to the family. Highly interesting.
dude makes me think of Dakota Fred...from the gold rush alaska show...
Wow! That is one scary looking guy in the picture! I think because he's just sort of "ordinary" but with a kind of "Hellraiser" aura about him.
Notice, the charges are not for selling gold teeth from corpses. They were for providing false info to a pawn broker. So, is taking the teeth out by a mortician actually illegal?? The article didn't address that. I don't think it is. it was providing the false info that got him in trouble....
Duh, everybody knows you're supposed to melt them down into bars first!
That IS creepy. I remember when my Dad died in 2004, the funeral home removed the gold from my Dad's teeth and returned it to my family. That is the way it should be.
Exactly right. The guy was recycling the gold as far as I am concerned. I told my wife if I die before her to have my four gold crowns removed and don't leave them for the undertaker to steal. It takes a lot of human sweat and land destruction to produce new gold.
I wouldn't bother with gold anymore. They have other materials for fillings nowadays.
But for when that comes up, I suppose it's best to ask the family first.
And man, could that guy LOOK any more like an embalmer?
Greed is a plague upon this earth..... right from wrong apparently has taken a backseat once again. Those teeth belong to a vessel that has departed and if the family of the person wishes to be despicable and do a legal request to have them removed that's another issue. This vermin has stolen from the dead plain and simple.
He's a Republican.
This has been done since King Tut - what's new?
nobrent LOL, he's a democrat. Republicans can buy it. Democrats steal it and blame it on society.
typical Repub vulture capitalist..........sometimes they don't even wait until they're dead to remove the "gold".
It's the only state in the US not to license embalmers, where do you think the people who can't get licenses anywhere else go???
a gold frame?????
You have a point, but if you did lose your license in another state going to CO does seem quite a bit more attractive. personnally, I would find it quite the waste to spend a few thousand on college, time on training, enduring the internship, only to throw it all away for what, a couple of bucks of gold fillings??? Come one, dental gold is not worth that much.
we'll you know what they say...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSST23SGp04
The whole God Damned country is crooked from the bottom to the Presidency. My opinion. Somebody prove otherwise. I have long wondered how much Jewlery is buried along with the deceased and how much of it isn't.
Tarzan7:
YOU are a good guy! You, in most circumstances, are trying to do the right thing. I could be wrong, but I'd bet that I wasn't.
tarzan , you should know, huh ? you are proably at the top of the list ! ha ha ha ha !
Now I suppose they have to waste tax dollars to exhume every body he worked on to see if they have their gold still. How about they just pull out all his teeth and be done with it. An eye for an eye justice.
The question that should be asked is who embalmed this guy? Oh, sorry...he's still alive.
Wow, it's like they couldn't find a worse picture of that guy. I'm pretty sure they added "creepy" to the headline because of that mugshot.
LOL...he wished he was special...so very special...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzjUjNPYzLg&feature=related
there's gold... in them thar molars...
At least he restricted it to the deceased?, or did he--
My dentist made two gold crowns for one tooth; they used one and gave me the other. I was saving it in case I lose the crown... now that spare gold crown could be worth ?? And it is brand shiny new. Maybe there is $5.00 of value. Anyone knows what a shiny crown goes for?
george, it goes by weight and who you sell it to.
Looking at the guys mugshot, makes me wonder if he's not a zombie. I think they have a penchant for shiny things, and gold would be one of them. What a sick, sick man. Someone subcontract out the cooking of this sicko.........
What the hell is it with these posts about fast cash, black and white love, old and young love, computer love, rich poor love- did I leave anything out? Why can't these be collapsed pronto like offensive posts? My head.
A Dem alright, if he was a Republican he would be wearing a mullet, a wife beater, and don't forget.............his cross!
Same thing hapened when I was in medical school back in 1985. Someone (medical student?) got into the anatomy lab one weekend and removed the gold from the mouths of all of the cadavers. And back then gold was "only" $300 an ounce!
This at first sounds terrible, but if you think a minute. If the family asked to recover the gold, I'm sure he would have done it, but if no one wants it, he has two choices. Bury it or keep it. I don't think the corpse cares one way or the other. It must be tempting to take something of value that is going to be stuck in the ground for ever. It seems offensive, but to just waste it, seems worse.
Fed Up is so very right, this is disgusting. The funeral guy should get no less than ten years behind bars..
Look at his eyes. HE IS CREEPY!!!!!!!
This is not surprising to me at all. The Funeral Home owners and people who work in that industry that I have met are some of the biggest crooks that ever came down the pike. They pay a couple hundered bucks for that casket they just charged you 2000 bucks for. I knew a guy who was President of a Casket Co. here in the United States. He said that Funeral Homes basically forced his business to Mexico not wanting to pay even a tenth of what they were selling the caskets for, all those jobs went to mexico, thanks funeral home greed. I know some who really try to go after elderly property for payment they can make a mint this way. My wife and I have a pact. Creamation and no funeral, no visitation and little as possible funeral home involvement. Her father died several years ago and my wife and I told the funeral home we were paying for the funeral. On the nite of the visitation she called the funeral home and asked them if they needed payment for anything and they said no just pay them after the funeral. that night during visitation my wife came to me with a tear in her eye and said the director wanted 100 dolllars to pay the grave diggers in cash and she didn't even bring her purse. I left the funeral home and ran to a ATM got the 100 bucks and brought it back gave it to the director. i reminded him that they had told my wife not to worry about paying them that same evening. he said the diggers wanted cash. i asked him if he didn't have 100 dollars cash and if he didn't would not it been better to have sent one of his people after it to pay the diggers instead of reguesting we leave the funeral home and do it. i also have wondered why these diggers would only take 'cash from this guy'. needless to say our last trip to his funeral home.
Quite often, it is the last trip you'll take.
You are 100% right!!!!!!!!!!! I know about one these crooks in Pennsylvania who illegally opened a casket that was intered over five years to hide his mistake from the next of kin. Of course he go a slap on the wrist for his crime.
My understanding of this is that if the family DOESN'T request the gold teeth it is standard practice to remove them and thus stop grave robbers from digging bodies up to steal the gold and/or valuables. So, if there are no instructions, and standard practice is to remove the teeth, then what do you do with them?????? Kinda like an unknown "tip" to the morticians. I got this from a mortician.......
reminds me of a story. a man passed away, he was the father to three sons. an engineer, a doctor and a lawyer. the sons were talking of their father and how he had been so generous with them sending them to college and all. the lawyer son suggested that each son put 5000 dollars into the casket with their father as away of paying their father back and saying thank you. on the day of the funeral the engineer and the doctor placed 5000 each in evelopes in their fathers casket. the lawyer son placed a check for 15000 dollars in his fathers casket and took out the 10,000 cash.
So he recycled them, did you think nobody was going to pay for the recycled gold? Whether he should have given the teeth to the family is a good question, but I dont think its responsible journalism to portray this guy as some sort of grave robbing fiend. Shame MSNBC.
Looks like a contracting job just opened up for ghouls
Now I suppose they have to waste tax dollars to exhume every body he worked on to see if they have their gold still. How about they just pull out all his teeth and be done with it. An eye for an eye justice.
that took some 'gumption"...to say that ...