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.
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