Former Altadena Crematory Operator Sentenced to Prison

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

David Wayne Sconce made headlines in the late 1980s when he pleaded guilty to the gruesome charges of commingling bodies and taking gold from the dead. Prosecutors said the crematory was part of the family-owned Lamb Funeral Home in nearby Pasadena.

He was later charged with the murder of Timothy Raymond Waters, who ran the Alpha Society cremation service in Burbank. But 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. His arrest was triggered when he was sentenced in a federal firearm possession case involving a gun he stole from a neighbor and pawned, the Pasadena Star-News reported. Sconce was extradited to California, where he had been held in Men's Central Jail without bail since Feb. 7.