Johnny Pollerana Worked at a Funeral Home Where His Job Was Stealing From the Dead — Where Is He Now?

If you Google the words "funeral home" and "controversy," a number of distressing results turn up, most of which reference the same crimes. The Return to Nature funeral home in Penrose, Colo. is where owners Jon and Carie Hallford were giving clients fake ashes of their loved ones. Instead of cremating them, authorities found 190 decaying bodies on the property, per the BBC. There are countless similar stories involving piles of human remains left to rot.

In Pasadena, Calif., a funeral home became the center of an HBO docuseries titled The Mortician. This is where we meet David Sconce, owner of the Lamb Funeral Home and the criminal mind behind a cremation industry that shocked his peers and the world. Sconce wasn't alone in his price-slashing proclivities. He had the help of Johnny Pollerana, his right-hand man and grunt worker. Where is Pollerana now? Here's what we know.

When authorities caught up with Sconce, they were able to flip Pollerana in exchange for immunity. He testified against his former boss in in order to get a get out of jail mostly free card. Perhaps he learned a lesson about breaking the law because apart from a bare Facebook account, Pollerana has hardly been seen since Sconce's attempted murder trial in March 1991.

While he was working for Sconce, Pollerana was asked to perform all manner of unspeakable tasks. For $6,000 a month, it's easy to see why Pollerana succumbed to temptation. He met Sconce in the early 1980s through his cousin, who was working at a cemetery. What started out as a fairly easy job as a hearse driver and cremator turned into a cascade of unethical practices.

Not only did Pollerana help Sconce burn multiple bodies at a time, sometimes even betting on how many remains could fit into the furnace, he was also responsible for stealing from the dead. Pollerana pocked jewelry, clothing, and on the bad days: gold teeth. He knew it was wrong, but Pollerana was nothing if not loyal. After the original crematorium burned down, Sconce moved to an old ceramic shop. It was there that they could burn up to 200 bodies at a time, and it was there they got caught.

Sconce's downfall was ultimately his own greed. Funeral directors in the area started growing suspicious about his output, knowing full well that there was only on way he could cremate so many bodies. In September 1989, Sconce pleaded guilty to charges that he "mutilated corpses, stole gold from the teeth of the dead, performed mass cremations and hired thugs to beat up competitors," per UPI.

Authorities were tipped off by a Holocaust survivor who lived near Sconce's makeshift auditorium. He called the police after realizing he smelled something familiar: burning flesh. It was an odor the Holocaust survivor knew he could never forget. Sconce was out of prison in under three years but was back in 2013 after he violated probation by possessing a firearm. For that, he spent another decade behind bars and was released in 2023.