Mum finds son's decaying body at Colorado funeral home four years after funeral (2024)

FAQs

How many bodies were found in the Colorado funeral home? ›

The 190 bodies were discovered last year in a bug-infested storage building in the small town of Penrose, about two hours south of Denver. Some of the remains had languished since 2019.

It was last fall when 190 improperly stored bodies were discovered inside the Return to Nature Funeral Home. The investigation into the funeral home began in early October 2023 when neighbors reported a foul smell to law enforcement. All decedents were removed from the funeral home on Oct.

After nearly 200 bodies were found stacked and rotting in a Colorado funeral home, lawmakers have proposed bills to overhaul the state's threadbare funeral home regulations, which failed to prevent a string of gruesome cases – from sold body parts to fake ashes. The cases have shattered hundreds of families.

Once a funeral home has picked up the body and brought it to their facility, they will then clean and dress and/or shroud the body. Afterward, the body will be placed in refrigeration to keep it cool until the day of burial, at which point the body will be transported to the burial site.

Instead of preparing the body with chemicals, morticians will store it in a fridge that keeps the body at two degrees Celsius. However, like embalming, it's important to remember that this merely slows the decomposition process – it doesn't stop it. A refrigerated body will last three to four weeks.

Unclaimed bodies are mostly cremated in the United States. Cremation lowers the cost to the government, and is more efficient for storage. The ashes are often buried in a large collective grave, or in a columbarium (above ground mausoleum for urns).

Return to Nature's owners, Jon and Carie Hallford, are accused of improperly storing 190 bodies and allegedly giving families fake ashes, among other crimes. They each face more than 200 criminal charges, including abuse of a corpse, money laundering, and theft.

The operators of another funeral home in the western Colorado city of Montrose received federal prison sentences last year for mail fraud after they were accused of selling body parts and distributing fake ashes.

A county coroner reported suspicions about bodies being poorly treated by a Colorado funeral home more than three years before nearly 200 decomposing bodies were discovered inside a decrepit building in October, according to newly unsealed court documents that raise questions about how the mistreatment of corpses was ...

A closed casket funeral is sometimes required due to the condition of the body or cause of death, and it is sometimes preferred by the family of the loved one due to religious or cultural reasons.

Who was the woman found alive in a funeral home? ›

Constance Glantz, 74, was declared dead at a nursing home near the state capital of Lincoln on Monday. Staff at a local funeral home that she was then brought to noticed about two hours later that she was still breathing.

The owners of the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado have been arrested more than a month after 190 improperly stored bodies were discovered inside their facility in Penrose.

"I remove your tongue during an autopsy. We need to make sure you didn't bite down on it, make sure you don't have drugs in the back of your throat."

I then puncture the internal organs to drain the fluid. I remove the contents of the intestines, bowels and bladder, too, as these can give off gases and smell. I don't come into contact with the fluids. It's very clean and tidy.

Is a body drained before cremation? Draining a body of fluids does not happen before cremation. If a body is embalmed before cremation, the bodily fluids are exchanged (drained, and then replaced) with chemicals during the embalming process. These chemicals are also fluid.

115 Decaying Bodies Found in 'Horrific' Scene at Funeral Home, Officials Say. A smell coming from a rural Colorado facility that had promised “green” burials led to the “very disturbing” discovery, a sheriff said.

Investigators who entered a Colorado funeral home where nearly 200 abandoned bodies were found encountered stacks of partially covered human remains, bodily fluids several inches deep on the floor, and flies and maggots throughout the building, an FBI agent testified Thursday.

Return to Nature's owners, Jon and Carie Hallford, are accused of improperly storing 190 bodies and allegedly giving families fake ashes, among other crimes. They each face more than 200 criminal charges, including abuse of a corpse, money laundering, and theft.