115 bodies found at storage place
Police probe ‘green’ funeral home
CAÑON CITY, Colo. — At least 115 decaying bodies were found at a storage facility for a “green” funeral operator after neighbors reported abhorrent smells emanating from the location in rural southern Colorado, police said Friday, calling it a “disturbing discovery.”
The owner tried to conceal the improper storage of corpses and claimed he was doing taxidermy at the facility, according to a suspension letter sent to him by state regulators that was made public Friday. No one has been arrested or charged yet.
On Wednesday, the Return to Nature Funeral Home facility in the small town of Penrose had been unregistered with the state for 10 months when owner Jon Hallford spoke by phone with a state regulator the day after the smells were reported and police launched an investigation.
Hallford acknowledged that he had a “problem” at the property and mentioned taxidermy, though a Colorado Office of Funeral Home and Crematory Registration document obtained by The Associated Press didn’t explain what Hallford meant with his taxidermy claim or how he tried to conceal the improper storage of human remains.
Text messages and phone calls were not answered at the funeral home, which had no working voicemail.
Officials declined to describe the scene inside the Return to Nature Funeral Home facility. A multiagency effort to recover and identify the remains was underway in Penrose, a town of about 3,000 people in the mountains west of Colorado Springs.
On Friday, a sour, rotten stench came from the back of the building, where windows were broken. Coroner’s officials from Fremont County and nearby El Paso County parked their trucks outside and talked among themselves as they walked around the building.
The funeral home performed “green” burials without embalming chemicals or metal caskets. Local residents said they smelled foul odors around the building for months but thought little of it, assuming a dead animal or septic system was to blame.
Funeral home officials were cooperating as investigators sought to determine any criminal wrongdoing, Fremont County Sheriff Allen Cooper said at a news conference.
“Without providing too much detail to avoid further victimizing these families there, the funeral home where the bodies were improperly stored was horrific,” Cooper said.
Some identifications would require taking fingerprints, finding medical or dental records and DNA, Fremont County coroner Randy Keller said.
“This could take several months. As we identify each decedent, families will be notified as soon as absolutely possible,” Keller said.
Other Colorado county coroners had agreed to help while the FBI and state police and emergency management officials worked at the scene. Meanwhile, Fremont County declared an official disaster to possibly make state funds available for the effort, Keller said.
The bodies were inside a 2,500-square-foot building with the appearance and dimensions of a standard one-story home.
Authorities declined to say if the building was equipped to properly store bodies. They also wouldn’t disclose in what state the bodies were found or how they were stored. Under Colorado law, green burials are legal but state code requires any body not buried within 24 hours to be properly refrigerated.
Deputies were called in Tuesday night in reference to a suspicious incident officials haven’t yet described. Fremont County sheriff’s investigators returned the next day with a search warrant and found the remains.
There was no health risk to the public, officials said.
A hearse was parked at the back of the building in a parking lot overgrown with weeds. Nearby was a post office and a few homes on wide, grassy lots, some with parked semitrailers.
The license for the facility expired in November of last year, according to a cease-anddesist order issued Thursday by Colorado state regulators.
Joyce Pavetti, 73, could see the funeral home from the stoop of her house and said she caught whiffs of a putrid smell in the last few weeks. The building had been occupied by different businesses over the years, said Pavetti, who once took yoga classes there.
Neighbor Ron Alexander said Wednesday night’s blur of law enforcement lights “looked like the 4th of July.”
The Return to Nature Funeral Home provided burial of non-embalmed bodies in biodegradable caskets, shrouds or “nothing at all,” according to its website. The company also provided cremation services.
The company charged $1,895 for a “natural burial.” That doesn’t include the cost of a casket and cemetery space, according to the website.
Officials declined to describe the scene inside the Return to Nature Funeral Home facility. A multiagency effort to recover and identify the remains was underway in Penrose, a town of about 3,000 people in the mountains west of Colorado Springs.