A second mistrial was declared in Summit County’s case against former Lake County Coroner Shannon Kent and his wife.
Kent was stripped of his operating license in 2020 after Lake County law enforcement investigating his home-based funeral home found unlabeled body parts, an unrefrigerated corpse, and scrambled documentation. Two criminal cases were filed against Kent and his wife, Staci, who worked as a partner in the funeral home business. The cases charged the Kents with misconduct, perjury, and abuse of a corpse, a felony.
Shannon Kent owned fives such businesses throughout the state, including one in Breckenridge. An unidentified corpse, believed to have been present for months, was found inside that business, prompting Summit County to file its own felony case against the Kents.
That Summit County case was temporarily derailed last Friday. According to the Summit Daily, a prosecutor saw a jury candidate reading a newspaper’s front-page coverage of the trial despite a court order to refrain from consuming media coverage of the case. Already short on qualified and unbiased jurors, the judge in the case declared a mistrial.
The Summit County case is now moving to Clear Creek County.
