“I could cremate one guy in, like, two hours. Or you could put ten of ‘em in there and take two-and-a-half hours. So, what would be the difference? There is none.”
That quote comes from David Sconce, who once ran a notorious cremation business in Los Angeles and eventually went to prison for a slew of shady practices. And it more or less tells you everything you need to know going into The Mortician, a new HBO true-crime documentary that will give you chills every time Sconce is on screen talking about what he did and why.
Sconce, freshly released from prison and somehow not at all outwardly bothered by what he did, is the central figure in this three-part series about one of the most disturbing scandals in the funeral industry’s history. He doesn’t shy away from the past; in fact, he seems almost eager to explain the twisted economics behind mass cremations, overbooked furnaces, and what happens when profit motives override basic decency. “Love ‘em while they’re here. Period,” he says at one point about a person’s loved ones.
By the time the deceased have gotten to him, however, he follows up with this chilling point: “That’s not your loved one anymore.”
The Mortician is about the fall of Pasadena’s Lamb Funeral Home, a once-respected family-run business until Sconce took over in the 1980s. What follows is a methodical unraveling of a mortuary that, under the guise of professionalism, preyed on grief-stricken families and took grotesque shortcuts with the bodies of those families’ loved ones.
Episode 1 kicks off the descent, detailing how the family business shifted under David’s leadership, with suspicious cremation rates and whispers from rival morticians. Suddenly, a young competitor dies of a heart attack at just 24. Episode 2 takes viewers even deeper into the story, documenting the suspicious fire that destroyed the crematorium, the growing pile of abuse allegations, and the police investigation that began to pull everything apart. By Episode 3, the Lamb family is in court, David is facing murder charges, while more than 20,000 families are left to grapple with what was done to their loved ones behind closed doors.
At the center of The Mortician is Sconce’s unblinking presence, paired with other voices that span the emotional spectrum from his ex-wife to grieving families, investigators, and morticians who saw it all from the periphery. These are raw, often weary recollections of a scandal that rattled the industry and led to long-overdue reforms. And viewers online are reacting accordingly, as these comments from Threads users show:
“Still can’t believe what I watched.”
“My jaw is on the floor.”
“If I had a dollar for every time HBO made a series about morgues… I’d have two dollars. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.”
Morbid jokes aside, The Mortician is a super-creepy docuseries about what happens when an industry built around respect for the dead just throws that principle out the window. If you’re squeamish or have recently attended a funeral, consider yourself warned.
