The awful smell seeped from a neglected building in a small Colorado town for days, followed by a report that made police take a closer look at the “green” funeral operator’s storage facility. Inside, they made a gruesome discovery: at least 115 decaying bodies.
Investigators were tight-lipped on Friday about exactly what they found inside the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose, Colorado, but their plans to bring in teams that usually deal with airline crashes, coroners from nearby jurisdictions and the FBI pointed to a grim mess.
A state document alleged that funeral home owner Jon Hallford tried to conceal the improper storage of corpses.
Photo: AP
He said he was doing taxidermy at the facility, according to the state suspension letter dated on Thursday.
Hallford acknowledged that he had a “problem” at the property, the Colorado Office of Funeral Home and Crematory Registration letter said.
The document did not elaborate on the taxidermy and alleged improper storage of remains, but the facility’s registration has been expired since November last year.
No one had been arrested or charged.
Fremont County Sheriff Allen Cooper the scene inside the building “horrific.”
On Friday, a sour, rotten stench still came from the back of the building, where windows were broken.
Some identification would require taking fingerprints, finding medical or dental records, and DNA testing in a process that could take several months, Fremont County Coroner Randy Keller said.
Families would be notified as soon as possible after body identification, he added.
As the news broke, Mary Simons, 47, said she could not help but wonder if her husband was inside the building.
She said she hired Return to Nature Funeral Home to cremate her husband, Darrell Simons, after he died of pneumonia from lung cancer, but the ashes never arrived.
She had finally begun to turn the corner of grieving, she said.
“Suddenly it’s like: ‘Oh my God,’ I’ve lost him all over again,” Mary Simons said through tears. “It’s like the grieving process is starting all over again.”
Police told Simons the process of finding out whether her husband’s body was in the building would be slow, she said.
The FBI was bringing in teams with additional training and specialized equipment that process “scenes of national magnitude,” such as major airline disasters, Denver-based FBI Special Agent in Charge Mark Michalek said.
The bodies were inside a 230m2 building with the appearance and dimensions of a standard one-story home.
The facility performed burials without embalming chemicals or metal caskets, using biodegradable caskets, shrouds or “nothing at all,” its Web site says.
The company charged US$1,895 for a “natural burial,” not counting a casket or cemetery space, and until July offered cremations, too.
Deputies were called in on Tuesday night in reference to a suspicious incident that officials have not yet described. Fremont County Sheriff’s Office investigators returned the next day with a search warrant and found the remains.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles. It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years. Such an impact has the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes. Scientists are not panicking yet, but they are watching closely. “At this point, it’s: ‘Let’s pay a lot of attention, let’s
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
CHEER ON: Students were greeted by citizens who honked their car horns or offered them food and drinks, while taxi drivers said they would give marchers a lift home Hundreds of students protesting graft they blame for 15 deaths in a building collapse on Friday marched through Serbia to the northern city of Novi Sad, where they plan to block three Danube River bridges this weekend. They received a hero’s welcome from fellow students and thousands of local residents in Novi Said after arriving on foot in their two-day, 80km journey from Belgrade. A small red carpet was placed on one of the bridges across the Danube that the students crossed as they entered the city. The bridge blockade planned for yesterday is to mark three months since a huge concrete construction
RSS